The Empire - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): The Evil Empire

And this one is the real deal!

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, Nazi or Chinese empires in some way. Led by the Evil Overlord or some kind of theocratic cabal.

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. 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.

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.

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.

Film

The Galactic Empire from Star Wars, of course. In the Star Wars Expanded Universe it continued to fight the New Republic for years, losing ground. Then, in the Hand Of Thrawn Duology, Supreme Commander Pellaeon made peace between the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic.
The Confederacy in CSA Confederate States Of America. First, they conquer the North. Then, they conquer a good deal of Central Americs (Truth In Television, as that was the Confederate's plan if they had won the war). Then, as an Axis country in World War II they conquer Japan. A throwaway line suggests they've recently done the same to the Middle East.

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 few centuries longer - but not exactly, as it was set up specifically to reestablish the Empire within a single millennium.
  - Except that in Foundation and Empire, the remaining empire is clearly Byzantium since Bel Riose is suspiciously similar to Belisarius.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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.
- And then The Movie came and the Alliance crossed the Moral Event Horizon with what went down on Miranda. No shades of gray here!
The Scarrans and the Peacekeepers, mortal enemies in Farscape.

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 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).

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. Seeing how it's revealed that he's apparently the equivalent of the devil in that world, that may actually be the case.
  - It's not that he's the devil. Just that, upon his death, he's considered so evil that he becomes the devil. Apparently, that throne is up for grabs. Who knew?
  - This troper took it to mean that he FREAKING KILLED THE DEVIL and usurped the 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.
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.
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.
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 whiped 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.
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.
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 compitent and are basically the cause of all the problems in the entire series. The Academy from Arc the Lad 3 fit this trope too, albiet 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.
The Mario series has Bowser's Koopa Kingdom/Empire, fitting this trope comfortably.
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: ^*
  ^{The Empire not only has the honour of having The Federation led by the local equivalent of The Kingdom in a cycle of running hot-and-cold wars for six hundred years, but actively is attempting to kill the very God Emperor the country summoned six hundred years ago to unite the Vestigial Empire of the last dynasty because the present emperor doesn't want to give up his job. Up to and including using a Magical Nuke powered by aforementioned god's ''love interest''. This only succeeds in really pissing off aforementioned God Emperor.}

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 [{Bug War 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 destroying the Earth Kingdom in the Grand Finale destroy the resources they are trying to claim?
  - ~~It could be argued that~~ the Pheonix King was insane.

Comics

Russia in Nikolai Dante.

Real Life

Nazi Germany.
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 Irish the British Empire.
- Or Colonial Era American, or from India, or parts of Africa...
If you're Algerian, the French.
- And of course the Napoleonic Empire, itself one of the Ur-Empires.
  - Aren't they French?
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 Persian Empire. From the Greeks viewpoint, anyway.
Let's not forget the Mongols.
Czarist Russia. When the Bolshevik Revolution happened it transformed into the Red Scare.