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alt title(s): The Evil Empire; Evil Empire
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Ave Imperator!
The Evil Counterpart to The Federation, The Empire wants to be the One World Order. Amassing The Evil Army, it sets out to conquer all of its neighbors by force of arms. Taking cues from history, it often resembles the historic Roman, German, Russian/Soviet, or Chinese empires in some way. Led by The Emperor, who is usually also an Evil Overlord, Emperor Scientist or God Emperor or by some kind of theocratic cabal. A theocracy of a Religion Of Evil will almost certainly be The Empire. None of these apply to depictions of the British Empire, which was led at the height of its power by a Size 50 Matron otherwise known as Queen Vicky.
Of course, there's going to be some kind of Resistance movement within its borders, and small autonomous nations without who may need encouragement by the heroes to become The Alliance. They may also be helped by Les Collaborateurs. The Empire is usually too strong to defeat militarily (unless the story is set in a war strategy video game), but taking down the leaders while they're instigating their sinister plan is usually enough.
Empires can range from being oppressive to being benevolent in rule. In Sword and Sandal films set in the Classical World, the Alexandrian Conquest or the Roman Empire are both seen as benevolent, their Emperors ahead of their time as men of action, enlightenment and thought. Alexander from the movie of the same title and Marcus Aurelius from Gladiator are generally the classic examples of these. This is the reverse for anything involving the Mongol conquest or the Hunnic conquests, who tend to be led by classic examples of the Barbarian Hero, and are far less benevolent in rule as a result. Most depictions of the British Empire, in fact belong to the former, except when it involves the American Revolution.
If both The Empire and The Federation exist in the same universe, they are usually either at war, just recovering from a war, or dangerously close to getting into one.
Note that just being called an Empire is not sufficient to qualify a nation for this trope. Especially in a Heroic Fantasy setting, other types of empires abound, often based on the Holy Roman or British Empires (and occasionally a more sympathetic take on the actual Roman or the Chinese Empire). These types of empires may be better described as a larger kingdom or federation, or a more centrally controlled Alliance. The confusion springs from the fact that in real life, there is no actual definition of Empire. Take Japan. "The Japanese Empire" you usually meant its time as a colonial power... but since it has an emperor, it technically still is the "Japanese Empire".
Weakened or weakening versions of The Empire often become Vestigial Empires. If The Empire has been overthrown or mostly overthrown but what's left of it is fighting to get back into power, it's The Remnant.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Britannia in Code Geass.
- Zaibach in Vision Of Escaflowne.
- The Zanscare Empire of Victory Gundam
- Amestris in the manga version of Fullmetal Alchemist (the anime version is more benign). It's stated that over the past 400 centuries, Amestris has conquered numerous nations, and is currently at war with Aerugo, Creta and Drachma. The Amestrian government is currently planning to use the entire nation in a transmutation circle to raise an immortal army using the slain souls of the numerous soldiers who have died over the years in a plan to conquer its remaining neighbors. Of course that's what Father claims, and he has lied in the past.
- The Holy Empire of Glass Fleet, led by Vetti Sforza, complete with the goal of becoming the One World Order.
- The Humankind Empire Abh from Crest of the Stars, though Your Mileage May Vary. Their mode of operation is to forcibly take over planets that do * not* have faster-than-light travel, though oddly they do not interfere with those planets which have purchased the technology from others. In the novels this is explained by the fact that their empire began on an interstellar merchant ship, and that they still respect "vested rights". They do not seem to be overtly oppressive towards the planets they control, but they do not allow * any* starship not owned by the Empire to be armed or use faster-than-light travel technology. Then there's the fact that only the "space elves" in charge are able to command warships, though this is due mainly to their physiology, not overt racism.
- Information from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Sound Stage X portrayed Ancient Belka as this. It was a powerful civilization with superior magic and technology that took over other worlds, until infighting and the Lensman Arms Race led to the destruction of their world and most of their civilization, with its remnants moving to an autonomous district in Mid-childa.
- The Hellas Empire from Mahou Sensei Negima is a partial subversion, since the war was actually orchestrated by Omnicidal Maniac terrorists. However, they made it look like the empire started it, and the heroes fought legions of imperial soldiers and warships until they learned of the conspiracy.
- The Galactic Empire in Legend Of The Galactic Heroes. Subverted insofar it's not actually that much worse than The Federation, especially after Reinhart becomes de facto ruler, rids the empire of the Deadly Decadent Court, and reforms the system to become more friendly to commoners.
Film
Literature
- The Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov's Empire and Foundation novels is a state which has already achieved this goal in the distant past - by the end of the Foundation series, the Foundation is on its way to achieving the same. Partially subverted in that Asimov doesn't treat these either of these political entities as overtly villainous.
- Asimov's Empire is explicitly modeled on the Roman Empire, and the Foundation's therefore bears some resemblance to Byzantium, the Greek-centered "Eastern Roman Empire" that lasted a thousands years longer - but not exactly, as it was set up specifically to reestablish the Empire within a single millennium.
- Although the Terran Empire in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels didn't start this way, by the time of its collapse it was a full-blown example of this trope.
- The Empire in Terry Brooks' Shannara series is actually called The Federation. After refusing to get involved in the first three Shannara books despite the immense threat posed by the antagonists of each installment, they decide to invade the rest of the world in the Scions of Shannara multi-part series and (unintentionally) assist the real Big Bad in destroying the Four Lands. What a bunch of dicks.
- The Barrayaran Empire and the Cetagandan Empire of Lois Mc Master Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga both qualify at any point they're feeling expansionist. Barrayar's at the peak of one, and starting to slide down, during Shards of Honor and Barrayar, but by the time of The Warrior's Apprentice, it's mostly caught up colonizing a new world (one it didn't have to conquer; it was uninhabited by anything above animals) and helps fight off the Cetagandans, who are still messing about. By A Civil Campaign Cetaganda's calmed down too.
- Persian, Ottoman, Hapsburg, and Chinese influences all show up in the Imperium of the Dune novels. While it doesn't receive a villainous portrayal (indeed, the heroes run it in some books), it doesn't exactly receive a heroic one either. It appears mainly as a status-quo form of society that keeps working because it's what the characters can build in their circumstances (particularly the civilization's dependence on the Bene Gesserit and Spacing Guild, who both rely on a natural resource found only on one single planet).
- Tanya Huff's short story "A Woman's Work" showed a well-maintained, organized and competently led empire, all thanks to a Queen who very clearly has the Evil Overlord List memorized (the story plays it for a comedy, with some direct references to the list).
- The Gurkish Empire from The First Law, complete with a Path Of Inspiration.
- Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time introduces the Seanchan Empire as a civilization with its stability dependent on enslaving natural
sorcerers channelers, and a universal delusion that the slave-masters are not themselves capable of channeling. Aside from the slavery and aristocracy, their strong socialist policies make them fairly popular among the conquered.
- The slave-master part is partially justified as if they hadn't ever had a slave, they would be incapable of channeling.
- The Eastern Empire in Mercedes Lackey's Heralds Of Valdemar series. A mild subversion, as the Empire is only evil at the top levels of the bureaucracy - when the armies wash over your country and start building roads, adequate housing, and utilities, most people figure they know what they're doing and don't put up a fight.
- Mijak in Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy.
- The Empire in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, which consists of a single country ruled by a king.
- There have been empires ruled by kings and queens beforehand, although considering that the government prior to this was ruled by people on dragons it's unclear why the land is called an 'empire' or why they use the title of 'king'.
- One of the few "bad" things in Marge Piercy's Mary Suetopia in the novel Woman on the Edge of Time is that they still have war, and their agrarian, utopian society is fighting a war of attrition with an evil technocratic, cyborg, robotic empire. But, they must not be doing too bad (they use weapons called "jizzers"...tee hee), since while their utopia takes up most of the Earth, the evil empire is resigned to antarctica, space, and the moon.
- The Co Dominium (CD) in Falkenberg's Legions by Jerry Pournelle. Technically The Alliance, consisting of the United States and the USSR, the CD becomes an interstellar empire, with Earth's nations really disliking the Alliance. It's also collapsing, due to the fact that the US and USSR still hating each other.
- Eventually the Co Dominium military forces leave the Earth when the USA and USSR blow each other to pieces (and other nations join in), to relocated on the planets Sparta and St. Ekaterina, where they found a full-bore aristocratic empire of their own.
- Inverted, played with and otherwise deconstructed in the Honor Harrington series. Manticore may finally revel in some good old-fashioned imperialism, but that doesn't stop them from being the nice guy of the series, while alleged Federations are either corrupt bureaucratic monstrosities that are falling apart at the seams (League), or alternate between that and bloody tyranny (Haven).
- Although Haven has gotten a lot better lately. You can make a pretty good case that are now as much the "good guys" as anyone else. Right now the only reason they're fighting Manticore is over a really big misunderstanding (details would be a major spoiler).
- Indeed, the only true black in the series now are the people behind genetic slavery - everyone else is various shades of gray.
- In C. S. Lewis's The Horse and His Boy, Calormen is a mild instance of this. Although it is not entirely bent on conquest, the book features an attempt to conquer Archenland, and the promise that will help conquer Narnia. The curse on Rabadash is explicitly described as making life easier for small countries nearby, as he can not conquer them himself, and is afraid of the power generals would amass if they did so for him.
- The Instrumentality of Mankind in the eponymous series by Cordwainer Smith. However, the Instrumentality is very, very unusual.
- In fact, trying to give an encyclopedic explanation of how it governs, its structure, its people's, history or even its policies wouldn't explain it with any justice.
- Both subverted and played straight in The Malazan Book Of The Fallen. The Malazan Empire is aggressive and expansionistic, but they're not evil. In fact, in the third book one of the leaders of the forces fighting against them comes to the conclusion that many of the cities they'd conquered were better off under the Malazans than they had been under their previous rulers. The Letherii Empire, on the other hand...
- Tolkien's Numenor became more and more imperialistic and evil until its catastrophic demise.
- Sauron's sphere of influence also counts, with numerous nations and cultures bound together to serve their tyrannical god-king. It doesn't hurt that Sauron's motives are basically Lawful Evil in a nutshell.
- On the other hand, the dominant human 'good guy' societies, Gondor and Arnor, offspring of Numenor's uncorrupted minority, are also empires, especially Gondor, which at its height controls most of the southern reaches of the area mapped by Tolkien. Later, Aragorn, the leader of the 'good guys' reunited Arnor and Gondor and establishes the 'Reunuted Kingdom, which is a very large, civilized, and decent empire.
- Played straight and subverted in Mistborn. The Final Empire controls the whole world and is a truly terrible place to live but its leader, rather than being power-mad, is a Well Intentioned Extremist trying to protect mankind from an Omnicidal Maniac. After killing him and throwing the world into chaos, the heroes wind up having to create an empire of their own to stand up to the real Big Bad.
- Inverted in David Weber's Safehold series, where the Empire of Charis is created by the protagonists. This is done out of survival since the Church of God Awaiting was trying to annihilate Charis and has been preparing steadily for another go after the first attempt failed.
- The Dark Empire of Granbretan in Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon books.
- The Medes in the Queens Thief books.
- The Empire in Eragon. Some disagree.
- That empire only even barely qualifies as an empire, considering that we get no indication that there were seperate states (or indeed any kind of organised government) or multiple ethnic groups that were incorporated together before Galbatorix founded his "empire". For all intents and purposes, it is merely a kingdom.
- The Hrum Empire in the Farsala Trilogy, which was based on Ancient Rome.
- The Imperial Order in the Sword Of Truth. Richard himself also inherits the D'Haran Empire, and starts adding to it. Of course his is a good version.
Live Action TV
- Several examples from Star Trek that The Federation encounters from the outside, like the Dominion and the Romulan Empire, not to mention the Mirror Universe version of the Federation itself. Arguably, the Federation itself is The Empire.
- The Alliance of Firefly, though since the main characters are all anti-heroes, it's suggested that from another point of view the Alliance might be considered The Federation. However, the Academy, which is a subset of the Alliance, is firmly on the side of evil.
- The Scarrans and the Peacekeepers, mortal enemies in Farscape.
- They're both bad enough that Crichton feels that destroying the entire universe is a better option than allowing either side to gain supremacy over the other.
- No one mentioned the Dalek empire in [[Doctor Who]]?
Tabletop Games
- The Coalition States in Rifts can be given a little slack for establishing order in the post-Cataclysm world... but not for enforcing illiteracy, destroying pre-Rift artifacts, and brutally hunting down and persecuting D-Bees, magic users, and psychics with chilling coldness.
- And Emperor Prosek's decision to consciously adopt Adolf Hitler as his role model really doesn't help.
- The Realm of Exalted is a classic example.
- The Imperium of Man and the Tau Empire in Warhammer 40000. And those are, by comparison, the good guys.
- The same with the Empire in the other Warhammer
- The Imperium is notable for it's sheer scale, A million worlds and with a population in the Quintillions, it fights thousands of wars at any given moment, it's soldiers number in the Billions, and it has existed for ten thousand years. One man, even the greatest man, is nothing, even the death of millions matters little in the Io M.
- The Third Imperium of Traveller is more like The Federation with hereditary nobles than an example of this.
- Though the first and second Imperiums may have been (and why the second one fell).
- Eberron has the former Kingdom of Galifar, and Forgotten Realms has Thay
Video Games
- The Final Fantasy series uses this trope on multiple occasions.
- Final Fantasy II has the Empire of Palemecia, which conquers, destroys, and enslaves seemingly for the heck of it. Partway through the game the Emperor kills the devil and usurps his throne. And as if that weren't enough to make him a badass, the expanded GBA release reveals that his "good" side has also taken over the equivalent of Heaven.
- Final Fantasy VI has an empire called...well, "The Empire" (it was renamed "Gestahlian Empire" in the GBA release) as the main antagonist for most of the game. As if it weren't clear enough, the intro shows the emperor giving the Nazi salute to his subjects. Of course, they're not the dangerous ones.
- In Final Fantasy VII, Shinra fits the mold of The Empire, though it's nominally an electric company... with its own army, and control of most of the world.
- In Final Fantasy IX, Queen Brahne is in the process of creating one of these until her death.
- Final Fantasy XI includes the Empire of Aht Urghan, which makes up the setting for it's named expansion. It rules over the Aradijah continent with an iron grip, and is in constant war with various Beastmen factions and the Far Eastern army. Bioweapons, chimeras, electric harnessing and Blue Mages are the result of Aht Urghan's technology. The best part is that the player character works as a mercernary/double agent for the big bad Empire for the entire plot.
- Final Fantasy XII has the Archadian Empire, which embodies this trope, and the Rozarrian Empire which seems more benevolent, but is only peripherally involved in the story.
- Final Fantasy Agito XIII has the aptly-named Milites, which is conquering most of the world at the time the game opens.
- The Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series has had a few. The original game takes place a while after the fall of the Liltian Empire, and Crystal Bearers takes place in the reign of it's revival. There was also an Ancient Empire in the past of Echoes of Time, led by a powerful Emperor Scientist. Who is the game's immortal Big Bad.
- Another video game example is Valua in Skies Of Arcadia.
- The Suikoden games have the Scarlet Moon Empire and the Harmonian Empire.
- While not always directly antagonistic, the Holy Lodis Empire is easily the largest military force in the Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre games and makes its presence known similarly to the Harmonians listed above.
- Alfard from the Baten Kaitos video games is an interesting example in that there's no resistance against it. The reason: the empire works to instill extreme civic pride in all of its citizens, so that the idea of acting against it has all the attractiveness of stepping on one's own foot.
Lyude: It's unthinkable! To act against The Empire!?
- The Combine of the Half-Life series are bent on inter-dimensional conquest. It's for our own good, though
- In Panzer Dragoon, the Empire is portrayed this way, but slowly becomes more and more sympathetic as the series progresses.
- Spiderweb Software's Exile / Avernum series starts the first game with a description of The Empire. "Not the Empire of Something or The Something Empire"... since there's really only one game in town. They find a massive underground cave network and decide it's the perfect place to chuck all their undesirables. Including you. So the rebellious elements in society are rounded up and sent down to live in near-darkness and plot revenge.
- Not to mention exterminating all non-human species on the surface.
- One of three ways to win the game is to join the rebels and help take revenge by assassinating the leader of The Empire. Although this does spark a war for the second game, and, well, The Empire does have a few more legions of disposable soldiers than the rag-tag underground rebels do. (Good thing you find aliens to help you!) Seriously, this game is fun.
- Subverted in the third game when Avernum ends up helping the Empire out and again in Avernum 5 when you play as Empire soldiers.
- The Empire in Drakengard, also fighting its own federation called The Union.
- The Elder Scrolls series contains an unusual subversion, in that the Empire is generally treated as fairly benevolent. And their goal to become a One World Order? They succeeded.
- More of a One Continent Empire, as Akavir and other continents remain untouched by the Empire.
- Not quite. Both continents invaded each other at some point in the past, but nobody's done anything since, and for a good reason.
- If it's a Fire Emblem game it has one of these. Generally the Empire has somehow fallen into the power of some dark evil God. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance's Daein and its King Ashnard are the best fitting, the others are all 'correct' but with a few details of note.
- The sequel, Radiant Dawn, gives this role to Begnion, which, unlike Daein, actually is an empire. The Dawn Brigade of Daein, the Greil Mercenaries of Crimea, and even the empress of Begnion end up fighting against the corrupt senate of Begnion.
- Halo featured two empires, one fits the trope better than the other. The one that fits this trope the best, is of course, the Covenant, a collection of alien species lead by religious zealots that seek to conquer every race in the galaxy in order to teach them the divine truth of the Forerunners, except for humanity, who they want to annihilate because they are the true inheritor to Forerunner tech, even though humans don't know it. The second empire is a bit more cuddly, the UNSC. It was described as an empire, and indeed has La Resistance fighting it, though they are portrayed more as terrorists than people bringing down an empire. Note that La Resistance is only featured in the Expanded Universe, and not the actual games, sadly.
- Helps by the time the game starts most of the La Resistance is wiped out by the Covenant
- Cuddly, that is, if your definition of cuddly is an iron-tight control of the colonies, kidnapping kids and turning them into super-soldiers, complete control of the media to produce only government-friendly news and cover up all losses, and annihilating a colony in a nuclear firestorm for rebelling.
- It certainly helps that they were by far the best alternative when they were founded (it was between them, the Frieden, and the Koslovics), and the Innies themselves have rather few redeeming features.
- Actually, if Contact Harvest is anything to go by, colonies of the UNSC were given quite a lot of self-governance. The UNSC was reluctant to interfere with colonial affairs even when it was beleived pirate attacks were occurring, for fear of fueling the insurrectionist flames. The insurrection is generally painted as a grey and grey conflict, with extremists on both sides, but a bit more so for the Innies. We are given no context whatsoever for the colony bombing, which may have resulted from one panicky, incompetent commander, or may have just been a tiny colony now solely used as an Innie base. The spartan program was initiated to halt a rebellion that would tear human occupied space apart, and even then was only known to the extreme top echelons of UNSC command. And, it is only during the Covenenant war in which the UNSC takes complete control out of necessity. Rather than an empire, the UNSC is generally portrayed as pragmatic, and occasionally corrupt, but for the most part just trying to do the best job they could.
- It turned out that it was UNSC who was the stronger empire in the end.
- The Knights Of The Old Republic series featured Revan's Sith Empire in the original and the Sith Triumvirate in the sequel.
- The latter being an allusion to the real-life Second Triumvirate
 .
- To be fair, the Triumvirate has no territories it controls, just a network of agents and blackened ruins where they have attacked. It is explicitly stated they don't care who rules as long as the Jedi are wiped out, since they would be unchallenged to do anything they want.
- Despite the name, the United Earth Federation of Supreme Commander is very much an empire, and a military dictatorship at that. Slavery of sorts is practiced, and there's at least some degree of restrictions on political freedom-the Infinite War began when outlying colonies began rejecting Earth rule and joining the Aeon. Earth's response was military in nature, one thing lead to another, and the Infinite War kicked off.
- No, you're thinking of the Earth Empire, the UEF is what's left of the Empire and overall much nicer.
- The UEF is still explicitly a military dictatorship-only a fraction of the UEF's population is allowed to vote, all the top officials are military personnel, active or retired, and oppression by military police is still in effect.
- The UEF is the state formed by the Earth Empire's military (Earth Com) when the Empire collapsed. So yeah, it's essentially a military dictatorship.
- The Aeon would also count, since they happen to led by a warmongering commander who plans to usurp the princess, and their goal is to brainwash everyone into accepting The Way, and cleanse all nonbelievers.
- A few corrupt officials and officers aside, this is generally averted in Tales Of Vesperia, where The Empire is not the primary antagonist.
- Secret of Mana has an empire simply called The Empire that wants to harness the power of the Mana Fortress. A group in one of its towns was formed to work against it.
- The East European Imperial Alliance from Valkyria Chronicles is basically your standard Empire.
- The Dilzweld Empire from Arc The Lad is a typical example of The Empire. Their army seems unstoppable— at the start of the game, they are about to attack The World Alliance (Huh, kinda sounds like The Federation, don't it?), the grouping of the other five mighty nations, and they are certain they can win. Although, they might have some trouble with that, considering whole platoons of their gun-packing Army (they have mechs and airships, too) are defeated with little difficulty by a group of adventurers armed with a sword, an axe, a bow, and some kind of barbed fishing fly on a string.
- A better example from Arc the Lad is the Romalian Empire, who were actually somewhat competent and are basically the cause of all the problems in the entire series. The Academy from Arc the Lad 3 fit this trope too, albeit they are a collection of scientists and scholars.. with platoons of soldiers with heavy machine guns and plans to rule the world.
- Romalia is a subversion: it started as a commercial empire, because a Romalian merchant was the first to discover spirit stones and to use them as an energy source: When Arc the Lad start, Romalia has been the world first super-power for already 1000 years, thanks to its control of the energy supplies, and things started to go really bad only one generation ago.
- The Furon Empire
- Free Space has the Ancients' Empire in its Back Story, which fell 8,000 years before the game begins, annihilated by the Shivans. The Back Story is told from the Ancients' point of view, chronicling their rise and fall, painting them somewhat sympathetically as victims of the "Cosmic Destroyers"... it's easy to forget that they were a galaxy-spanning war machine conquering planets and enslaving species left and right: "And we saw other advanced life, and we subdued it, or we crushed it..." The Shivans could almost be seen as the heroes in this case.
- The Kilrathi Empire, from the Wing Commander series.
- Super Mario Bros has the Bowser Empire/Kingdom, or whatever it's called. Heavily militarised, run by a despotic monarch and frequently invading the Kingdom... but oddly, in later games it's shown that not only are Bowser's soldiers mostly just doing their jobs, they actually like, respect and admire Bowser, and are quite loyal and proud. (if not understandably scared of pissing off the giant super-strong turtle-dragon king)
- Inverted with the Lanvaldear Kingdom and the Malkuth Empire in Tales Of The Abyss. Through Luke's POV, Malkuth Empire should be the Big Bad and his own kingdom Lanvaldear is good. Turns out, neither is really good nor bad. If anything, Malkuth Empire is shown to have a much more benevolent.
- Played quite straight in the MMORPG Pardus, where the Empire has won every war it was involved in up to this point(no, I'm not talking about the backstory either). This is even more surprising when you consider that the Empire(along with the other factions, The Federation and the Union) is completely player run!
- Overlord II has the Glorious Empire, a copy-paste of the Roman Empire, seeking to eradicate all magic in the world. Of course, by "eradicate" one means gather it all in one spot then use it to become a god and reshape the world. Standard stuff.
- Played straight in Breath Of Fire and extremely to trope in Breath Of Fire IV.
- How much to trope? This much: *
- All hail the BFF Empire!
- Averted in the Disciples series. The Empire, the human force and the local Mario race, are more often than not generally the good guys, though there were some corrupted nobles that gained a lot of power during the time skip between the Original game and the Sequel, because the Emperor did mostly nothing for the entire decade. Once they got a new King, they cleaned up their act considerably. And then the Elves invaded them for poorly explained reasons.
- Dragon Age has two: the Tevinter Imperium (a Vestigial Empire by the time of the game) and the Orlesian Empire, the true Empire of the game's present setting.
- The Confederation in Escape Velocity.
- The Terran Dominion in Star Craft, ruled by Emperor and former terrorist, Arcturus Mengsk.
- The UED later in Brood Wars.
- The, well, Empire in Gratuitous Space Battles, which is one of the most powerful galactic civilizations, a technologically-advanced powerhouse that has existed for thirty thousand years and counting and is bent on conquering what parts of the galaxy they haven't taken yet. Their "Emperor" is a bit "under the weather" - no one's seen him in about a thousand years or so, but the Empire itself keeps marching along.
- Bronquia in Yggdra Union except not.
Web Original
- Tech Infantry has several factions, both human and alien, that occasionally or always fit this trope. The Earth Federation was determined to be the only government of the human species, and aggressively expanded at the expense of various alien empires, who were trying to do the same to them. Then they get replaced by the Middle Kingdom after one faction finally wins the seemingly endless human civil war, and they are even worse in this department. Various alien empires, from the Arachnids to the Jurvain also fit the trope.
- Decades Of Darkness has the * USA and the Brazilian Empire.
- In the Chaos Timeline... well, since this is a realistic (hi)story, it's a question of your POV. The New Roman Empire, the German Technocracy and others might all qualify.
- Open Blue has two rival empires, Avelion (Imperial Spain) and Seran (Nazi Germany), and a Vestigial Empire, Yaman (Imperial Russia). The Back Story features the Jormungand Imperium, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Ancient Rome, as precursors armed with weapons blessed by their god who suffered from a Gotterdammerung. Ironically, the three present empires are all part of a larger Federation, the Axifloan Coalition.
Western Animation
- The Fire Nation of Avatar The Last Airbender. It's even All There In The Manual that they're conquering the world for the same reason real empires did: they industrialized first and now need resources.
- Wouldn't their actions in the Grand Finale have destroyed the resources they were trying to claim?
- The Phoenix King (Ozai) was insane.
- Destroying the people and the greenery would have left the mineral resources intact, and the land could probably have been recultivated.
- The Irken Empire on Invader Zim.
Comics
Real Life
- The USA. Technically, it meets the defintion of an empire as a "a group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government: usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom". It does not have an Emperor/Empress at its head, or even a monarch, but this is not necessary for something to be politically considered an empire - see the French Empire in the 20th century, for example. Your Mileage May Vary over whether it is for better or for worse, but the USA does undeniably use its political clout and military power to influence other countries and the rest of the world in an imperialist fashion. The Other Wiki has an article about this.
- If you were to define it as an empire though, considering the sheer size and scale of it's influence, it would probably qualify for being the biggest and most powerful empire in existence... EVER.
- Debatable. If you were to go by landmass and/or population, the British Empire - which spanned a quarter of the globe at its apex - was the biggest empire in existence. Even in terms of percentage of global GDP or percentage of global population, the British Empire still ranks higher than the USA. The USA does, however, beat the British Empire in terms of GDP size. Influence is a much harder thing to calculate and you could make a valid case for any major historical empire. While the military strength and the political/economic clout of the USA has enabled it to have a wide area of influence, this influence has always been countered by another country - first the USSR in the 20th century, then the PRC in the 21st century.
- Technically, the German Federation. Germany is composed out of 18 different countries, and with countries, I mean countries! Up until 140 years ago, Germany didn't exist. Then the Prussian Empire annexed all the other countries, like Westphalia, Hessia and Bavaria, which lead e.g. to the decay and abolition of the monarchies. Bavaria, by the way, still sees itself not as a part of Germany, as it is not only the most massive, and beautiful German country, but also has it's very own leading Conservative Party (the rest of Germany's countries follow the Main Conservative Party; as they have no own), and still does carry the name ' Free State Bavaria '.
- Nobody but a German would consider Baveria as not part of Germany. That's just soo not right. We do hope they don't belong to us as the language is quite ... memorable and they induce weird prejudices like sauerkraut and lederhosen. Every other former country also carries names like ' Free State Saxonia ', ' Free State Thuringa ' and so on. And the Baverian Conservative Party does not only opperate in Baveria, and there are different parties in the States which you can't vote for in other. Your Mileage May Vary
- Till the middle of the 20th century, Empires were considered the ideal form of government, kinda like Democracies today. The failure and collapse of all the old colonial empires and the new ideas propagated by both the USA and USSR saw perceptions change.
- Nazi Germany.
- The British Empire
- Pictured is the Roman Empire at its largest. Although The Republic that preceded it was actually responsible for conquering the majority of that territory.
- If you're Algerian, the French.
- And of course the Napoleonic Empire.
- The Ottoman Empire.
- The Islamic Caliphate, way back when.
- China at various times throughout history.
- And, looking into the Tibet situation, STILL.
- Of course, due to rampant corruption, this was bound to happen anyways.
- The PRC also wants to take control of Taiwan.
- It also took some land from India.
- The Persian Empire. From the Greeks viewpoint, anyway (Cyrus the Great's empire actually has a pretty good bill for human rights).
- Let's not forget the Mongols.
- Or the Aztecs.
- Or the Incas.
- Actually, the Inca state was literally The Federation. The Quechua name for the Inca state was Tawantinsuyu, which translates as "The Four Provinces." Though military expansion did occur, the Inca would often inform neighboring peoples of the economic advantages of integration. Most regions that composed Tawantinsuyu joined political union under the Inca without any warfare.
- Czarist Russia. When the Bolshevik Revolution happened it transformed into the Red Scare.
- The Spanish Empire. Just ask the Aztecs. Or the Inca. Or the Philippines.
- The empire that Alexander the Great made out of his conquest of Greece and the entire Persian Empire.
- On a smaller scale, the Inland Empire, an impossible labrynth of snowy peaks, scrubby fields and vast swaths of abandoned housing tracts. Once a bountiful agricultural area, was overdeveloped to Dubaiesque proportions until the bottom fell out. Along with Orange County, considered to be the "evil" part of southern California.
- The USSR. Though it claimed to stand against imperialism, it pretty much practiced it all the way. It turned the Eastern bloc of Europe into satellite states, and it garrisoned Soviet troops in those states to impose communist rule. It suppressed any form of opposition against it, and it had no problem in using armed force to do so.
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