Discussion Main / VestigialEmpire

Out of interest, why the edit lock?

Male, early sixties, Cranky old fart, at least two decades behind. So you have been warned. Functionally illiterate in several languages. Hide / Show Replies

What-if natter from the Real Life section:

• Had the Turks not become involved in the First World War (which caused the British to instigate the Great Arab Uprising), they would have soon discovered that they were sitting on 20% of the world's oil deposits. Judging from the disproportionate power that countries such as Saudi Arabia wield as a result of "the politics of oil", it would certainly have regained its status as a Great Power - unless its neighbours then decided to simply divide it up between them.
  • Had it not been for a now-obscure series of both diplomatic and military blunders by the British at the start of World War I, it's very possible that the Ottoman Empire would have joined the Entente or at least remained neutral, in which case it almost certainly would be one of the world's great powers today. Its disposition would have depended heavily on its policy towards its remaining minorities: the Armenians, the Kurds, and (most important of all) the Arabs, who were by far the most numerous ethnicity in the Empire other than the Turks themselves. The Arabs of Syria and Iraq in particular had actually been instrumental in developing a relatively coherent theory of the Empire as an Islamic "civilization-state" (by that time all of the Empire's lands save Armenia were majority-Muslim) with a common identity centered on loyalty to the Sultan as Caliph; there was also talk among Arab nationalists within the Empire of developing a Habsburg-like arrangement in which the Caliph would have some sort of constitutional role in a united, autonomous Arab polity within the Empire (after the fashion of Hungary under the Dual Monarchy). However, the Young Turks preferred a more traditional nation-state with a Turkish identity for the Empire, which probably would mean that even if it survived the war, the Arabs were unlikely to be solicitous—possibly leading to Balkanization in the same way it happened in the Balkans.
  • Newer thinking by historians is starting to question if the Ottoman Empire could have survived if it didn't "pick the wrong side" in World War I. The British, French and Russians had the Empire's land in its sights for most of the 19th century (especially Russia), and right before WWI, the Ottomans were humiliated in a series of conflicts against its former provinces. It is possible that victory in WWI might have given it more time to recover (especially in light of the Romanov Dynasty's collapse), but expanionist polices of the Soviets and British interests in the Middle East might have meant it was doomed, anyway.

There was an important aspect of Canadian independence that would have needed to be resolved if the UK had fallen to the Nazis: there would have had to have been discussions about formally transferring the amending power over the Canadian Constitution away from the hands of the British Parliament. /nitpick.

Removed from the Dragon Age entry, for being way too much Wall of Text for a single example:

• To clarify: The Tevinter Imperium once ruled much of Thedas (the continent that the game takes place in) and was ruled by the Archmages, with the Archon as their leader. After their failed invasion of the Golden City in the center of the Fade, the Maker cursed the mages and turned them into darkspawn. So began the First Blight. The Blight lasted for hundreds of years, and the Imperium was gradually whittled down to a fraction of its former size and glory. The first Exalted March, led by Andraste, Daughter of the Maker, only served to weaken it further, despite winning by treachery within Andraste's own ranks (from her husband, no less). The Imperium now only has a few isolated cities left, and is slowly become overcrowded as refugees from the darkspawn and the qunari, the latter of whom are in constant conflict with the Imperium for control of the north. Pretty much the only time the player encounters them is in a quest in the Elven Alienage in Denerim, where you break up a slave trade. The Imperium's mages are more than likely all maleficars, and they worship dragons, which is the reason that the Maker first turned his back on his children. See if you can remember all that.
  • The above is the version of Tevinter's history as recounted by the Andrastian Chantry, whose biases might be showing. At least one codex entry reveals that current-day Tevinter also worships the Maker, but is in schism with other Andrastian nations because the Imperial Chantry has male priests and a male Divine, and they do not recognize the Divine of Orlais. This situation makes it pretty clear that ancient Tevinter is a loose analogue for the Roman Empire, with current-day Tevinter representing the Byzantine Empire, as a schism developed in Christianity between the Western Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Anyone who knows the game want to condense it down to something salient?

132 is the rudest number. Hide / Show Replies

"In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Dragon's Teeth", the crew awakens several hundred members of a species that used to rule the quadrant, who find that their enemies have overrun their old empire and that the name of their species is now a synonym for "foolish". "

Sounds to me like a homage to what happened to Nimrod. But it's actually I think a Bugs Bunny cartoon that is responsible for that I believe.

I trimmed the real-life section down a bunch. Note that not all rump states, or indeed all ex-empires, fit the description — in fact, most don't (as they didn't usually rule a substantial fraction of the known world, nor do they necessarily have long periods of decline).

• The technical term is "rump state" and includes any state considered remnant of a once more extensive power. It may have since lost areas due to foreign invasion, secession or civil war. Russia is perhaps the greatest present example, even though just Russia is huge. Egypt and Italy are not considered rump states, but Turkey is.
• An incredibly little-known fact: In the fourteenth century, Lithuania was the largest country in Europe, with Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia all being territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth created a new state which came into being in 1569, ruling over much of the same territory until it was systematically dismantled by Austria, Prussia, and Russia over the course of twenty-three years.
  • In some ways, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became this after its demise; it's political structure was one of the big influences on the U.S. Constitution, and thus later Constitutions with similar origins. As well, Polish national identity and pride in their free country persisted up to World War I, when they finally gained independence after being swallowed up by Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
• China has essentially been going through cycles of unification and disintegration for the past few millenia. While it has often been a single empire for centuries at a time, there have been countless periods when it has been reduced to a multitude of smaller states and warlordships all vying for power. Most recently, China was fast on the road to becoming one of these under the late Qing Dynasty and the early years of the republic, culminating in the Japanese invasion in the 1930s; fortunately for the Chinese (less so for Tibet and other rim states), they turned things around.
• The United Seven Netherlands - also known as the Dutch Republic - and its successors from about 1672 onwards. Between 1602/9 onward, the Dutch Republic had been one of the major powers in Europe, dominating trade (with a trade fleet larger than that of all of the other European countries combined), with the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) being the most powerful in the world. At its height of power, during the Golden Age, it included colonies and trade posts in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Ivory Coast, North America, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, amongst others. After 1672 (called the Disaster Year, or Rampjaar in Dutch, where it was attacked by a coalition of France, England, Munster and Koln/Cologne) a steady decline started, where the Dutch trading position was taken over by the English/British in a series of four wars from 1652-1784, and wars with France and internal strife slowly turned it into a minor power. Eventually, the Republic was put out of its misery by the French in 1795. Its successor, the (United) Kingdom of the Netherlands managed to hold on to the Indonesian colonies and Suriname for about a hundred years more, until the mid 20th century.
  • The (United) Kingdom of the Netherlands is itself an example of this, after it lost half its core territory following the Belgian Revolution.
• For centuries, the Emperor of Japan was tremendously vestigial, with warlords like the Shogun holding the real power and sometimes not even bothering to help keep up the facade of the imperial court - one emperor waited twenty-one years for there to be enough funds for an enthronement ceremony, and some emperors supposedly were forced to sell calligraphy to make ends meet.
• The Republic of China once ruled all of China proper, and even had claims on Mongolia, but after the defeat in the Chinese Civil War, is now little more than a rump state that controls just the island of Taiwan and a few islands off the coast of the mainland.
• Similarly to Brunei, it is a little known fact that Oman actually defeated the Portuguese Empire and conquered itself a respectable if small maritime empire in Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean. Then the British came in.
• The Achaemenid Empire (aka the Persian Empire, aka modern-day Iran), at it's greatest height under Darius the Great, encompassed very nearly the entirety of the middle east.◊ With approximately eight million kilometers of territory, it's said to be the largest empire of ancient times. Very few know this nowadays.
• The Soviet Union could be seen as an empire, in which case the countries it helped create that remain even though the USSR has ceased to exist (e.g. Cuba, North Korea, North Vietnam) could be seen as vestiges of that empire.
• Averted by the Ottoman Empire, which seemed to be going this way until, in the early 20th century, they underwent some major reforms and started rebuilding their strength, credibility, and prestige at a feverish pace. Just before the Ottomans found out that they were sitting on at least 20% of the oil in the world, they entered World War I and got beaten, stomped, and set on fire. All that was left was the rump state of Turkey, the rest of the Middle East being partitioned between Britain and France.
• The Holy Roman Empire was, for a time, a significant force, but it decayed from the outset. It was partitioned after Charlemagne's death; the remaining Holy Roman Empire was made of loosely affiliated Germanic and Slavic duchies. However, strong leaders like Otto the Great, Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II kept the nation under a sort of unity. The overly prolonged death came when the Habsburg family came to power. Since the electoral system for the emperor consisted mostly of southern German, pro-Austria dukes and bribed Habsburg cronies, the Habsburgs never left the throne, alienating the North German nobility. Charles V's attempt to centralize the Empire in the 16th century, but the Protestant Reformation put an end to that, as the Protestant Northern Germans saw it as a rallying cause against the Catholic Habsburgs and Austria. Religious tensions culminated in the Thirty Years' War, which brought apocalyptic destruction to Germany, reducing its population by 15-30%. The war ended in stalemate and the empire now existed mostly in name only. (Voltaire observed that, by his time, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.) By the time Napoleon liquidated it it was a confederacy. The Habsburgs themselves continued to reign in their Austrian and Hungarian dominions until 1918. Yet by then, the Empire was already a relic of a relic.
• Alexander's Greek Empire of Asia. Not only it was one of the largest empires ever made but his conquests helped spreading the Greek civilization into the East. Archaeologists still find countless of greek monuments and artifacts from that era in all Asia. Not to mention the many cities took his name. Alexandria in Egypt, was proved to be the most prominent one. His Empire collapsed shortly after his death as his successors divided in new Hellenistic Kingdoms.

Edited by Micah 132 is the rudest number. Hide / Show Replies

I added the Klingon Empire. Arguably, ever since they made peace with the Federation, they've been in decline. With everyone going for blood and honour, and over half of their fleet destroyed by the Dominion, they are more than likely in a downward spiral.