History Main / VestigialEmpire

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'' has the Raguraz Empire, whose ambitions of conquest you hear about quite some time before you ever reach its lands. Thanks to the [[TimeyWimeyBall semi=]]TimeTravel [[TimeyWimeyBall your heroes keeps doing]], by the time you actually arrive in Raguraz, all that remains is a broken shell of a castle and its king, as they were wiped out by their [[TheDogBitesBack formerly conquered]] neighbors.

* The Adrestian Empire from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' is something of a downplayed example as it is still a militarily and economically powerful nation, but in the millennium or so of its existence it has gone from dominating all of Fódlan to being confined to the south after losing territory to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance. In the present day, the current Emperor Ionius IX is fatally ill and [[AuthorityInNameOnly powerless figurehead]] on his deathbed while a cadre of nobles led by the [[EvilChancellor Prime Minister]] [[CorruptPolitician Duke Aegir]] have all the real power. [[spoiler:The "vestigial" part [[ResurgentEmpire goes right out the window]] should the player take the Crimson Flower route as Byleth helps the new Emperor Edelgard, the daughter of Ionius, reclaim all the Empire's lost territory in her quest to overthrow the Church of Seiros.]]

* Bulgaria, twice. The first Bulgarian empire in the early Middle Ages encompassed the country's modern territory plus those of Romania, Moldova, Macedonia, and parts of Greece, Albania, Serbia and Turkey. Some time after its destruction it was revived as a smaller empire, but still spanning over much of the Balkans early on before it got reduced to what is now Northern Bulgaria and Southern Romania. After it too fell, its people struggled for centuries to liberate themselves and the country was finally restored and its goals for national unity initially featured regaining all territories of the Second empire. While the third state was initially a monarchy band called itself the same as its earlier incarnations ("Tsarstvo" literally means "empire" from Tsar = Caesar = Emperor), its rulers and citizens now thought of it as TheKingdom, not TheEmpire.

** There are some people who felt that UsefulNotes/ElizabethII was ''the'' last vestige of Britain's imperial past, not the monarchy itself, but her ''personally'', and not for nothing. She was born during the final boom of the British Empire, during the reign of her grandfather George V, lived through UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and her 70 years on the throne oversaw the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth, which observers have opined to be very much a creature of her own making. Even her coronation has come to be regarded not as the dawn of the new Elizabethan age as it was at the time, but the swan song of Britain's Imperial Splendour. There are also observers that say republican movements of all stripes will have no success "as long as she was alive", similar to how observers said there weren't any major changes coming to Austria-Hungary as long as Franz Joseph lived. And that proved (semi) accurate as Franz Joseph who had ascended to the throne in 1848 died in 1916 with empire dissolving little over two years later. However, [=WW1=] arguably was a more important cause of those changes than Franz Joseph's death.

** Fallen Empires are the remnants of {{Precursors}} who drew back to small isolationist enclaves. They're still powerful though, in one early multiplayer game every other faction in the galaxy ganged up on a Fallen Empire and the Fallen still managed to win. In later updates, Fallen Empires can actually [[BackFromTheBrink "reawaken"]] and start throwing their weight around and in the ''Leviathans'' DLC, actually fight each other (an event known as "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast War In Heaven]]").

* The Galactic Empire from Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' novels turns into this over the course of the series, and the Roman parallels are many and explicit, including a Justinian-like reconquest that collapses in on itself. By the time of the Mule, the Empire controls only twenty agricultural worlds, having abandoned its original capital CityPlanet, Trantor, after the Great Sack. When the story's protagonists visit Neotrantor, the new capital, the senile Emperor Dagobert IX is under the impression that the Empire is as strong as ever, treating the Foundation as just another world within the Anacreon Province of the Empire. Interestingly, his son has no memory of the old empire, and sees being the ruler of twenty worlds as being pretty impressive.

** The Orks were once the Krorks, the purpose-built SuperSoldier race and final project of the Old Ones. The Beast's Waagh, little more than an echo of what the Krorks once were, brought the Imperium to it's knees and had the technology to turn entire planetoids into "attack moons" equipped with Gravity-manipulating weapons that could tear flagships apart and shift entire mountains to crush opposing armies. With no off switch and no one else to fight, the Krorks eventually fell upon each other and descended into the anarchic madness that is the modern Orks.

** There are some people who feel that UsefulNotes/ElizabethII was ''the'' last vestige of Britain's imperial past, not the monarchy itself, but her ''personally'', and not for nothing. She was born during the final boom of the British Empire, during the reign of her grandfather George V, lived through UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and her 70 years on the throne oversaw the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth, which observers have opined to be very much a creature of her own making. Even her coronation has come to be regarded not as the dawn of the new Elizabethan age as it was at the time, but the swan song of Britain's Imperial Splendour. There are also observers that say republican movements of all stripes will have no success "as long as she is alive", similar to how observers said there weren't any major changes coming to Austria-Hungary as long as Franz Joseph lived. And that proved (semi) accurate as Franz Joseph who had ascended to the throne in 1848 died in 1916 with empire dissolving little over two years later. However, [=WW1=] arguably was a more important cause of those changes than Franz Joseph's death.

** There are some people who feel that UsefulNotes/Elizabeth was ''the'' last vestige of Britain's imperial past, not the monarchy itself, but her ''personally'', and not for nothing. She was born during the final boom of the British Empire, during the reign of her grandfather George V, lived through UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and her 70 years on the throne has overseen the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth, which observers have opined to be very much a creature of her own making. Even her coronation has come to be regarded not as the dawn of the new Elizabethan age as it was at the time, but the swan song of Britain's Imperial Splendour. There are also observers that say republican movements of all stripes will have no success "as long as she is alive", similar to how observers said there weren't any major changes coming to Austria-Hungary as long as Franz Joseph lived. And that proved (semi) accurate as Franz Joseph who had ascended to the throne in 1848 died in 1916 with empire dissolving little over two years later. However, [=WW1=] arguably was a more important cause of those changes than Franz Joseph's death.

** There are some people who feel that UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen is ''the'' last vestige of Britain's imperial past, not the monarchy itself, but her ''personally'', and not for nothing. She was born during the final boom of the British Empire, during the reign of her grandfather George V, lived through UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and her 70+ years on the throne has overseen the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth, which observers have opined to be very much a creature of her own making. Even her coronation has come to be regarded not as the dawn of the new Elizabethan age as it was at the time, but the swan song of Britain's Imperial Splendour. There are also observers that say republican movements of all stripes will have no success "as long as she is alive", similar to how observers said there weren't any major changes coming to Austria-Hungary as long as Franz Joseph lived. And that proved (semi) accurate as Franz Joseph who had ascended to the throne in 1848 died in 1916 with empire dissolving little over two years later. However, [=WW1=] arguably was a more important cause of those changes than Franz Joseph's death.

[[caption-width-right:350:The sick man of Europe is divided against itself.[[note]]ironically, the UsefulNotes/OttomanEmpire, being something like "the worst of the best", managed to survive longer than those empires that were undoubtedly more powerful in the period before WWI, including German, Russian as well as Austro-Hungarian (depicted in the caricature as Emperor Franz Joseph I), which all fell in 1917-18, while the Ottoman Empire survived until 1922. [[/note]]]]

** As of the end of the sixth season, [[spoiler:the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros has become this. Cersei Lannister finally managed to destroy a great number of her opponents and officially grasped the reins of power, but of the Seven Kingdoms, Dorne is openly revolting against the throne, the Vale, the Iron Islands, and the North are doing so in secret with the Reach about to join in, and YoungConqueror[=/=]DragonRider Daenerys has ''finally'' launched her own invasion to attempt to retake the kingdom. On top of all that, Cersei's house was confirmed several seasons back to secretly be bankrupt, nobody in the Court aside from a few toadies is personally loyal to her, and the Crown itself is heavily in debt to a bank with a reputation for getting rulers who don't pay back their loans overthrown and replaced by their rivals who will do so. [[PyrrhicVillainy Cersei has finally gotten her hands on the throne right when the throne lost all its power]]. As of the end of the seventh season she's mostly turned it around; the Iron Islands are hers, Dorne has been neutralized by taking out its leaders, the Reach has been effectively wiped out and the money looted from there used to pay off the bank, and all her other enemies have agreed to a ceasefire to fight a greater war in the North.]]

* The Galactic Empire in ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'', as not only the government's influence is waning due the conflicts among the [[DecadentCourt High Nobles]], but a string of incompetent military commanders led to multiple defeats against the [[TheFederation Free Planets Alliance]], that at one point would have been able to ''march all the way to the Imperial capital'' (the one thing that saved the Empire was the death of the Alliance admiral who inflicted that defeat, as his subordinates couldn't agree with each other long enough to do it and the Alliance government lacked the political will, giving the Empire time to rebuild their military and put a [[ThatsNoMoon gigantic space fortress]] on the invasion route). By the time of the series, the Imperial government is so weakened that Reinhard von Lohengramm was able to wipe out the High Nobles and impose himself as the Prime Minister [[spoiler:and then become emperor]], at which point the Empire is reformed and enters a new golden age.

* The Vagaari Miskarate (formerly called the [[Literature/OutboundFlight Vagaari Empire]]) in ''Fanfic/StarWarsAscendancy''. Prior to Thrawn's exile, the Vagaari were a vast slave empire that threatened the Chiss Ascendancy, controlled a large portion of the Unknown Regions, and fielded an impressive fleet of warships hundreds strong. By the time the ''Chimaera'' encounters them, the Vagaari's repeated wars with the Chiss, combined with Miskara Pesh's incompetent leadership, have seen them reduced to wandering the stars aboard a few dozen ramshackle starships in constant states of disrepair. This is further reflected by the state of the Miskara's throne room, which is brightly lit to create an illusion of opulence and has aged walls covered with rust. After [[BigBad the Voidlord]] makes off with all the Vagaari's treasure ships, they are left in an even sorrier state as they suffer from chronic resource shortages and their entire way of life is said to be on the verge of becoming unsustainable.

* Happens to the Vagaari Miskarate (formerly called the [[Literature/OutboundFlight Vagaari Empire]]) in ''Fanfic/StarWarsAscendancy''. Prior to Thrawn's exile, the Vagaari were a vast slave empire that threatened the Chiss Ascendancy, controlled a large portion of the Unknown Regions, and fielded an impressive fleet of warships hundreds strong. By the time the ''Chimaera'' encounters them, the Vagaari's repeated wars with the Chiss, combined with Miskara Pesh's incompetent leadership, have seen them reduced to wandering the stars aboard a few dozen ramshackle starships in constant states of disrepair. This is further reflected by the state of the Miskara's throne room, which is brightly lit to create an illusion of opulence and has aged walls covered with rust. After [[BigBad the Voidlord]] makes off with all the Vagaari's treasure ships, they are left in an even sorrier state as they suffer from chronic resource shortages and their entire way of life is said to be on the verge of becoming unsustainable.

* Happens to the [[Literature/OutboundFlight Vagaari Empire]] in ''Fanfic/StarWarsAscendancy''. Prior to Thrawn's exile, the Vagaari were a vast slave empire that threatened the Chiss Ascendancy, controlled a large portion of the Unknown Regions, and fielded an impressive fleet of warships hundreds strong. By the time the ''Chimaera'' encounters them, the Vagaari's repeated wars with the Chiss, combined with Miskara Pesh's incompetent leadership, have seen them reduced to wandering the stars aboard a few dozen ramshackle starships in constant states of disrepair. This is further reflected by the state of the Miskara's throne room, which is brightly lit to create an illusion of opulence and has aged walls covered with rust. After [[BigBad the Voidlord]] makes off with all the Vagaari's treasure ships, they are left in an even sorrier state as they suffer from chronic resource shortages and their entire way of life is said to be on the verge of becoming unsustainable.

* Almost every nation in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' is this, at least on the continent where most of the story takes place, due to a mysterious depopulation and the effects of repeated wars. Even the tiny city-state of Mayene claims to be ruled by a descendant of Artur Hawkwing's continent-spanning realm, and there were entire kingdoms swallowed by [[GardenOfEvil the Blight]] that were supposed to be very strong. Much of the depopulation since then could be attributed to people being killed/enslaved by raiding from the Blight. All of the major southern cities are indicated to be very large, as they have never been attacked and some (at the beginning of the series, at any rate) did not even believe that [[GoddamnOrks Trollocs]] existed.

** The Elves of Middle Earth also qualify, having been the dominant race of Middle Earth prior to the wars against the forces of darkness (Morgoth and later Sauron) and the rise of men resulted in them diminishing in both number and power. However, Middle Earth had been little more than an outpost for their civilization for most of their history; when their control slipped away they simply returned to the Undying Lands where the bulk of them had long lived.

** The Ogre Gorain Empire ruled the majority of Draenor at one point, dominating the other races through their massive physical strength and brute force magic more than political savvy. Their holdings have shrunk over time, especially after the arrival of the Draenei. The rise of the Horde is the effective end of their dominance on Draenor.

* This was [[Franchise/LyricalNanoha Nanoha's]] justification for refusing to claim her birthright as [[Franchise/SailorMoon Princess Serenity]] in ''Fanfic/WhiteDevilOfTheMoon'': by the time she and the other Senshi had awakened, the Moon Kingdom was in ruins from the Dark Kingdom's attack, and aside from those directly involved in the Dark Kingdom case, there was no one that even knew the Moon Kingdom had ''existed'', except a few scholars that mentioned it in papers about these type of countries. Luna...doesn't take it well.

* This was [[Franchise/LyricalNanoha Nanoha's]] justification for refusing to claim her birthright as [[Franchise/SailorMoon Princess Serenity]] in ''Fanfic/WhiteDevilOfTheMoon'': by the time she and the other Senshi had awakened, the Moon Kingdom was in ruins from the Dark Kingdom's attack, and aside from those directly involved in the Dark Kingdom case, there was no one that even knew the Moon Kingdom had ''existed'', except a few scholars that mentioned it in papers aboutthese type of countries. Luna...doesn't take it well.

* In ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'', Ancient Belka was a powerful empire that spanned many dimensions, a mighty civilization that conquered every world that came its way with its superior magic and technology. However, infighting mixed with the LensmanArmsRace and widespread pollution have destroyed the empire from the inside until it finally fell apart after the self-sacrifice of the last Saint King, Olivie Segbrecht. All that's left of the Belkan Empire in modern times is the Saint Church Autonomous Region in the Northern Mid-Childa, although the Saint Church focuses more on the religious than political power (their doctrine is based around [[CrystalDragonJesus Olivie as the messianic figure]]) and preservation of the Ancient Belkan cultural and magical heritage. [[VideoGame/AceCombat Setting a number of nuclear bombs off on themselves didn't help.]]

* The European Union itself is a quasi-[[TheFederation federation]] of many vestigial empires cited here: in fact, having the world's second largest GDP (after the U.S.), the second largest military in both number of troops and military expenditures, the world's second reserve currency,[[note]]Albeit an extremely distant second. [[http://data.imf.org/?sk=E6A5F467-C14B-4AA8-9F6D-5A09EC4E62A4 Foreign exchange reserves]] worldwide are 62% held in American dollars. The euro comes in next at 20%.[[/note]] the world's third largest population a very respectable amount of soft power, and the fact that it one of the few polities to have known a significant expansion in the post WWII, the EU could very well be the first alliance of surviving Vestigial Empires turning into an HegemonicEmpire... That is, if it had a [[UnitedEurope strong central government]] which it still lacks, especially since Britain announced its exit.

** In some sense, Soviet Union was initially this to the Russian Empire. After defeating Napoleon, Imperial Russia dominated the stretch of territory from the English Channel in the west to the Rockies in the east, spanning most of Europe, all of Asia, and much of North America. In the hundred years afterwards, they lost influence over Central Europe, sold off Russian America, and of course fell apart completely during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In a way though, the Soviet Union at its peak in the Cold War had practically half of the world under its influence much like the United States. Both nations appealed to anti-colonial movements early in the Cold War when possible to buy influence at the expense of the waning European empires, but the Soviet collapse and rising anti-American sentiment has arguably lead to a multi-polar world despite America remaining the sole superpower.

* Interestingly enough, Romania used to be an empire in ancient times, called Dacia back then. Dacia (ancient kingdom comprising Romania and Moldova) used to be a powerful empire and one of the biggest threats to the Roman Republic under UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar under the rule of the mighty king Burebista (reign: 82-44 BCE). Dacia under Burebista managed to conquer between 60 BCE until the king's death in 44 BCE many people,tribes and kingdoms such as the celtic tribes in the Balkans and Central Europe (Boii, Scordiscii; the Greek city state in the western shores of the Black Sea (from Odessa to Apollonia); the Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace; some germanic tribes(Marcomanni, Bastarnae) and some sarmatian tribes. Burebista's Dacian Empire stretched its boundaries from west, Bohemia (Czech Republic) and Bavaria (SE Germany) to east, Odessa, Ukraine and from the north, Southern Poland and Belarus and to the south, Thrace (European Turkey, Bulgaria and N-E Greece). Burebista was referred by governor of the then-Greek city colony of Dyonisopolos as "the First and the Greatest of all the Thracian kings" or the king of kings of his own empire. However, the Roman Republic under Caesar declared his empire, alongside with the Parthian Empire as the two great threats of Rome because Burebista supported Pompey during the brutal Roman civil war against Julius Caesar (49 BC -- 48 BC) and was defeated in Greece and was killed in the Ptolemaic Empire of Egypt. But Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC and Burebista met the same fate afterwards in the same year. After Burebista's assassination, his empire was split in 4 and later 5 kingdoms in Dacia. After that, Decebalus (reign: 87 AD -- 106 AD) unified Dacia one last time as a defensive kingdom against the rapidly expanding RomanEmpire, but Decebalus' kingdom was a shadow of its former powerful self and the Dacian Kingdom was absorbed by Rome in 106 AD. Burebista's Dacian Empire (82 BC -- 44 BC) is the only event in Romania's history when the state became a mighty empire which was a short lived rival of Ancient Rome.

* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': After a two year TimeSkip, the Wufenbach Empire, or Pax Transylvania if you prefer, is said to no longer exist, though it still holds a fair amount of territory and influence and has the area around Mechanicsburg locked down. After the disaster at Mechanicsburg, Europa is in complete chaos, various Storm King and former Storm King factions are either rebelling against them or trying to work with them to piece Europa back together, and [[spoiler: the Other's forces are active again]]. Wulfenbach is still the strongest power in Europa, but how much territory they have left is unclear.

* The Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance once had an iron grip on almost the entire industry, excepting a handful of "Independent" enterprises ([[NotWorthKilling allowed to exist]] to avoid anti trust legislation), "Outlaw" territories (who operated in defiance of it), and the whole of Europe(where promoters collectively refused to join until their own problems [[WeAREStrugglingTogether made the offer more appealing]]). After Wrestling/{{TNA}}'s exodus from NWA, maintaining tentative oversight of independent promotions across a mere six countries became a challenge. But the NWA pressed on, got a temporary foothold in Europe, and remained a mostly respected presence (especially in Japan).
* Within the NWA itself, Wrestling/ProWrestlingZero1 was one of Japan's premier promotions and was in the process of expanding to other nations by setting up off shore branches in them. But it shrank to a largish "indy fed" with a few foreign affiliates after the death of its founder, Wrestling/ShinyaHashimoto. It soldiers along though and has also joined some of the other alliances that have sprung up since the NWA's decline.
* While not as dramatic as the NWA, the Wrestling/{{Toryumon}} "university" system successfully bridged IWRG of Mexico and the lucharesu feds of Japan. Then a schism between headquarters of the two regions basically caused all the Japanese presence to be taken by Wrestling/DragonGate. While Toryumon Mexico stuck around and even did pretty good gates, it ended up running shows much less regularly and its students had to figure out their further education themselves as DG had little interest in them. As Dragon Gate grew, it decided to channel its expansion into the English market, but DG USA and DG UK, its foreign branches, failed to grow like the origin branch and the DG empire crumpled faster than Toyrumon's, though Dragon Gate remained stronger in Japan than Toryumon did in Mexico.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''...

* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Dukat feels this way about the Cardassian Union, which has been reduced to a shadow of itself following the Federation-Cardassian War. It's what leads to him aligning Cardassia with the Dominion, hoping to use them as a means of regaining their lost glory.