WHY ARE EMPIRES ALWAYS THE BAD GUYS?

I'm genuinely curious. We see it in everything from Star Wars too Dungeons and Dragons. Empires are always "bad", while the Protagonist faction is almost always the "Heroic Republic" why do you think this is? There seems to exist a trope that "Empire" is equal to "Genocidal Nazi wannabes".

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Empires are totalitarian by definition.

Are you seriously asking while democracy is usually associated with good, while autocracies are not?

No they're not, an empire is multiple territories under one authority figure. Totalitarian means that it demands total obedience, and can have any number of men in power.

Better question: why is The Empire always bad and the Kingodm always good? Does having oversea territories and an heterogeneous population automatically make you evil?

Kingdoms tend to be autocracies and those are often "good" in fantasy fiction.

World War One happened.

Authoritarian, you dipshit.

Empires through history have taken territory with violence and war rather than democracy.

An exception is Romancing SaGa 2, the Avalon Empire are the good guys and by the endgame you've taken over the entire region through vassalage and allegiance.

The term 'empire' suggests power and size, and since heroes are typically underdogs, an Empire makes a good enemy. In addition there wouldn't be much of a threat if the heroes had an entire Empire on their side and most stories wouldn't have such a large entity be passive in the narrative, so they end up the villains.

FTL got around this pretty well. As did Gundam.

Although in Gundam they kinda flip flopped on who was good between the "rebels" and the "empire", though more often than not it was the rebels.

Basically this. That and an Empire tends to acquire foreign territories through force and have to keep locals suppressed which makes them look even worse.

>FTL
Wasn’t it a Federation?

Look around you in the real world. How many empires do you see? How many democratic governments do you see? Proper empires are a thing of the past, and most people believe in the march of time (to some degree). The empires are gone, democracy is now, and so the empires must have been inferior and evil. In the USA it's a part of the culture to be antagonistic toward empires since we broke free from one while also upholding democracy as the correct form of government. Anti-colonialism is also in fashion nowadays.
Kingdoms are cozy little packages seen though rose tinted glass. An empire by definition has to incorporate foreign cultures by force.

Empires imply wars of conquest, which have been out of style since the world wars.

because empires are authorytharian by their very nature. You need to implement a, at least semi-authorytharian goverment to keep tabs on all the people you conquered, who might not be happy about said fact, and to make shure all the people from your country that are unhappy about all the wars wont rebel.

Empire of Man in the well, Empire of Man series by Weber
Fel Empire in Star Wars probably counts

A republic is good compared to an emprie. But there are a lot of setting in which democracies doesn't exist, so you might want to play in those.

China, Russia, fucking america

"Empire" also implies the subjugation of other territories while "kingdom" seems more idyllic and not so belligerent

>What is the British and Russian Empires

Hitler ruined the whole empire thing. He also ruined the white race, right wing politics, nationalism and eugenics. Seriously, at this point only the Chinese can get away with legit eugenics without everyone calling them the N-word.

The Russian Empire ended in WW1.
Today even the British have a very uncomfortable relationship with their imperial history. They're schizophrenically proud and ashamed of it at the same time.

> Empires are never the good guys
> WTF is Warhammer Fantasy?
> WTF is TES?
> WTF is Honorverse?
> WTF is Star Craft?

It should be noted that sometimes "empire" is just a name and doesn't reflect actual actions or policies of the state. A famous example, the Holy Roman Empire wasn't an empire or holy or even roman.

Especially in the early series Gundam has very grey morality. The original and its followup did the best job of this imo

>the big bad who usurped the royal family and started the war tries to peacefully end it after expressing regrets over the entire thing
>both sides agree to rules of war that would keep humanity from being completely destroyed
>some Federation soldiers (and especially officers) are shown to be fallable
>the vast majority of Zeon rank and file are shown to be more patriotic than evil, like a romanticized idea of a pre-WW1 Prussian military
>most of the notable Zeon characters are honorable soldiers who would be heroes if they fought for the Federation

>A government system based on which corrupt Rich guy can lie to the most people is morally superior to a well led autocracy.
Americans lol

>It should be noted that sometimes "empire" is just a name and doesn't reflect actual actions or policies of the state
Kind of like the American Empire
All hail Norton I, Emperor of America and Lord Protector of Mexico

Empires are inclusive but hierarchical societies, whereas nation-states are exclusive but equal societies.
In other words, Empires piss off people who live in them by perpetuating inequality, whereas nation-states piss off people outside of their borders and can therefore eschew responsibility far more easily.

>Wars of conquest are intrinsically evil
Kek.

>he thinks that a system where the guy who convinced the police and army to kill the most of his enemies and work for him because he gives out the biggest paycheck is superior to a well working democracy supported by freedome of the press and a good edcuation system

hi /pol/

Because in the modern world, the nation state is often the most basic unit in international politics and relation, but ultimately for popular self-determination. And well the nation-state posits a certain homogeneity (such as Germans for Germans) from the rulers on down to the lowest peasant. The Empire is by definition it's very opposite, it's an entity made of diverse groups who are controlled by one group with these others having little say in matters of their own governance with power and wealth most often controlled by the elite of that governing group.

First of all, many authors have proposed solutions to prevent that shit. Look at Rousseau's theories brought to practice in modern day Switzerland with its semi-direct democracy. Rousseau spent a lot of time hammering on the English system (making him unusual among enlightenment philosophers) precisely because he noted that de facto the courts just bribed MPs to vote whichever way the court desired.

Secondly, the problem with autocracies is that they're only as good as the autocrat in charge. Autocrats aren't immortal, there's no fool proof formula for raising good autocrats and being a good leader isn't hereditary. The closest thing to a functional autocracy is a Roman style dictatorship, and even that is the exception where the rule is republicanism.

The ability to advance past "kronk has biggest stick, tribe obey kronk" is precisely what made the West great. Rome and Greece were republics, the renaissance was driven by Italian republics and the French republic dragged Europe into modernity.

...

Wouldn't Picard facepalm at your post as he is staunch democrat?
>Cardassian are a shit.

I'm more annoyed at how all "empire vs rebels" stories paint the rebels and paragons of incorruptable pureness.

For all it's faults, Skyrim taking a more nuanced stance on this and making the rebels having just as many faults as the Empire was a very good aspect of the story.

>Warhammer Fantasy
>The Empire would have been the lesser evil if Bretonnia didn't exist.

>TES
>The Empire that is choking on its own blood ; at least does not seems evil

>Honorverse
>Isn't the Kingdom of Manticore the good guys though ?

>Star Craft
>We just spend two games destroying the empire with the Terrans AND the Zergs, totally the good guys

I'd obey him

youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo

Don't start shit, won't be shit. It's not that difficult.

It's because most modern states were carved out of rebels rebelling against some sort of Empire or countries who freed themselves from a previously oppressive government. So there is a common national mythology valorizing these things.

>I'm more annoyed at how all "empire vs rebels" stories paint the rebels and paragons of incorruptable pureness.
Because sometimes you just want clearly good guys fighting clearly bad guys.

So you're saying you'd vote for him? Checkmate royalist!

Because in modern western society, 99% of normal socially functioning adults support the idea of liberal democracy

It takes a very juvenile mindset to say "wow look at these neat uniforms! fascism is awesome!". This is why it's so popular on Veeky Forums which is perpetuated by actual children and man-children from socially awkward backrounds

I wished they just ditched the dragon shit entirely and focused on the civil war in Skyrim, they had something surprisingly workable there.
The Rebels in Skyrim were crazed nationalists who treated foreigners like shit, especially if they weren't human. They were pompous, believed they could take on the thing that literally fought off a unified Empire, and were being led by someone who was maybe-maybe-not in it for his own desire to rule than anything else.
The Empire did genuinely seem to want what was best for the country but it always just felt a little wrong to have someone 2 countries over telling your people how to live. There was also the religious freedom aspect, but that was more enforced by the Thalmor than the Empire's own wishes.
Which brings you onto the Thalmor themselves, who didn't much care who won the war so long as it was being fought and were egging on both sides to play them against each other, the consideration of a greater enemy also lent strength to the Empire's right to rule Skyrim to turn the Empire and Tamriel in general into a unified front again.

Because American have a "REPUBLIC" and they fight the EVUL ENGLISH KINGDOM EMPIRE. It's relatable to mass americunt consumer.

I mean to be fair the British Empire did do some pretty terrible things.
Even if the taxing of the colonies wasn't one of those things. Damned colonials.

> Warhammer Empire
Look, for all their flaws, they're ultimately just intolerant and backwards compared to the much more sinister evils they wage constant war against. I'd say working with the Elves and Dwarfs against Chaos, the Skaven, and the Greenskins makes them part of the "Good Guys" of the WF world.

>Septim Empire
Unified Tamriel, brought a long lasting peace and golden age, fight ancient long dead evils. Yep, they can be corrupt and dickish, but they're good guys.

>Honorverse
Actually, it's the Manticore Star Empire which is composed of the Kingdom of Manticore and the Talbott Quadrant.

> StarCraft
See; Warhammer Fantasy. Ultimately not as bad as the alternative.

>Rome and Greece were republics, the renaissance was driven by Italian republics and the French republic dragged Europe into modernity.
That's ignoring a whole lot of empires (and kingdoms) - a huge part of roman law that got passed down to the west was Imperial (mainly Justinian's), the Magna Carta and Common Law was the product of a (admittedly shaky) monarchy, the hugely influential Code Napoleon was Imperial, and the trade routes that made the West prosperous and in part spurred the industrial revolution were tied intimately with the idea of Empire.

Not necessarily an emperor, mind, but Empire certainly.

> In addition there wouldn't be much of a threat if the heroes had an entire Empire on their side
Yeah, that's a good point. Though if you have the group on the other side be a much bigger federation (usually commie) you might get away with it - that's how Honorverse's Manticore and anything WWII with Britain in it manage to get it to work.

You might just be able to get away with having rebels that go full on hardcore terrorist these days, but even then they'll have to attack civilian targets to not look brave as balls

>Everyone agrees you're a faggot so you must be a faggot
Americans have two digit IQs so it's no surprise they fall for that farce

A man of good sense. Empires simply make for the best villains, and since the entire point of a game or a movie is to tell a good story, you need good characters

Depends on the literal setting.

Yes, I do know why players have this kneejerk reaction, thank you very much. Still, when there is a pseudohistorical parallel they tend to grok why it's the good guys or at least neutral.

My best example is probably Fading Suns (consider that this is basically Historical Parallels in Space: The Game, you gotta have players at least comfortable with history). When you make them grok that Alexius=Frederik II they will not think of Darth Vader and friends.

>Even if the taxing of the colonies wasn't one of those things.
No representation without taxation motherfucker.

>a huge part of roman law that got passed down to the west was Imperial (mainly Justinian's)
And Roman style imperialism was a pretty crazy thing. There's this book called "The Byzantine Republic" which seeks to fight the stereotype of Eastern Rome as a Greek kingdom by showing that, even in the eyes of its contemporary inhabitants, it still reeked of the Roman Republic. Napoopan recycled precisely that (how could he not? He found himself in the exact same position as Augustus). As for the Magna Carta that's mostly a meme that's celebrated retroactively. The real turning point for England was parliamentarism after the Dutch invasion.

There are some big flavor differences here and there, but what made the West great has always been the radical idea that even non-nobles had a say in some form or another in what direction the nation was headed. That's the unique heritage the ancients gave to us, and one we must preserve at all costs: the idea that a state exists to serve the people and not the other way around (as appears to be the default among primitives who advanced beyond being mere tribals).

>No representation without taxation
... I meant it the other way around, though this way it's still *technically* true.

Not always, but that just means you need to broaden out your media library a bit more.

It's because people like to root for the underdog. Nobody wants to see a story where there is a little uprising and it gets stomped out immediately. People love to see shit where against all odds the good guys won. Not "oh they're probably gonna win. Yeah they won."

Is you calling my boi KF's empire rayciss and evil?

>lesser evil without Bret
>when the Skaven, Dark Elf and Norsca exist

>humans banding together in a world that is out to get them and saving it time and time again makes the empire evil
Archaon please go

Because of post-colonialism, mainly, and all the shit that people did in the name of the various empires of history. Some of the greatest crimes against humanity, and all those that the moderns deign to remember, have been done in the name of empire. See: The British Raj, the Belgian Congo, the Japanese Rape of Nanking. To some degree, you can blame Star Wars for codifying it, though. Or you could look back, if you’re American, or in a country that has been culturally doused in Americanism, in the strong pro-democracy, anti-(European)-imperialism sentiment implicit in the cuture (see Toqueville), which equates all forms of (European) imperialism to be necessarily evil.

You do know that slogan only got picked up after they'd already been rebelling, right?

Representation, under the way parliament worked at the time, would have been the absolute worst thing for the colonies - unless there was some serious splitting up of each colony, they'd have 26 MPs in a house of 500+ (plus decisions would be a trip across the Atlantic to get anything done).

What they wanted was to run things in their own little devolved colonies. And to not pay, obviously.
Even though those particular set of taxes were raised to pay for a war that had protected the colonies, started by a colonist...

one would wonder if with time China would make us think of empire as a better thing, as for them it kinda was.

China is doing pretty damned well for itself though. The Republic of China, that is.

The PRC and RoC are both doing pretty well, honestly.

>Laughing sparrows

Almost everyone would rather live in the RoC rather than the PRC though. That, and the PRC would be objectively better if it were run more like the RoC.

Its time to stop chiang

I certainly would rather live in the RoC. But that was never the contention. My point is that both states are doing perfectly fine, though I disagree that the PRC would be better if run like the RoC.

This is too far from being Veeky Forums, though.

I mean the funny thing is that western civilization is an example of the fact that empire and republic are so closely related. The question of OP then stands. Why is the shoe never on the other foot? Why do we have to pretend Republics are all good and Empires are all foes?

The Romans at least did most of their expansion as a Republic though.

An Empire is good if the Emperor and his men are good. A Republic is good if the representatives and their men are good. If an Emperor must be a man who at the very least pretended to be Good before a council of people, or even some majority, then there's functionally no difference between him and any Republic's head of state.

Systems of government don't make good nations: good men do. Systems of Government are just different views of how best to allow good men to do that.

>though I disagree that the PRC would be better if run like the RoC.
At least all the (somehow unsuccesful) attempts by the Communist Party to run the entire thing into the ground wouldn't have happened. And let's not forget what they're doing to their own drinking water right now.

>too far from being Veeky Forums
>you_don't_even_need_other_boards.jpg

It's a lot easier to run one little island than it is to run a country of nearly one and a half billion people over the 3rd/4th biggest national land area with many land borders.
Not saying the PRC is well-run or anything, don't get me wrong, but it's got a lot more scope for things to be difficult and go badly.

>Why is the shoe never on the other foot?
In that case, I don't know. A Roman/Napoleonic style good guy empire would be pretty sweet. With bad guy kingdoms for le ebin subversion.

>A Republic is good if the representatives and their men are good.
I'd moreso say that a republic is good as long as the electorate is both virtuous and involved. Republics die where there is indifference.

How about Achamenid Empire?

Go read Discourses on Livy and come back later.

well the posterchild of freedom is fucking up it's drinking water just fine without communism so...

One thing you could do with taking inspiration for a "good empire" (or at least one with redeeming features) is have it be something that people want to be a part of - whether for protection, for trade purposes, for a better life, to avert wars of succession, or even for glory; if you have the empire be something that at least some people genuinely WANT to be a part of, it doesn't come off as so bad.

Rome's got probably the best examples of this, but there's quite a few other examples of people wanting to join up with the Empire when they're being winners

I would argue that they simply make *Traditional* villains. There is no reason why the villain couldn't be a Revolutionary Republic seeking to spread democracy at bayonet point ala the French Revolution. There is a reason that Empires make for good villains. Despite their wrongdoings in whatever setting, they often have very attractive traits. Honour, duty, A United purpose. I much prefer setting where things are more nuanced and realistic.
"This nation is good because the Protagonist is from there", has never been an attractive reason to root for someone. AT least not for me.

I chalk it up to two things: Presentism and American Hegemony.

The first is the automatic assumption that all things of the present world are morally superior to things of the past. The primary mode of government today is the democratic republic. The primary mode of government before the first world war was Monarchic imperialism (since most states were under the hegemony of one of the imperial European powers). Under the assumptions of Presentism, republics are morally superior to empires since the former dominates today but the latter no longer really exists.

The second factor is American Hegemony, which in no small part informs the first factor I mentioned. The US is the current dominant civilization, and can therefore set itself up as the benchmark for state morality. The USA formed from conflict against imperial power (the British Empire) and there for set the benchmark of 'Republic Good' and 'Empire Bad'.

The position of monarchy as good versus empire as bad is merely a reflection of this, and a residual inheritance from, ironically, the British Empire.

Which falls apart when you consider that the modern education system is descended from from the Prussian and Austrian system and that the current best method of education, 'Direct Instruction' is even more closely based on those systems than anything that came out of America, England, or Republican France

And speaking as an actual member of the journalism industry, Freedom of the Press is a myth. The industry is always controlled by an external force, be that state mandate or the invisible hand of the Market. There are always things that the media will purposefully avoid informing the public about, which undermines the the romanticised ideals of republican democracy.

>French Republic dragged Europe into modernity

It did shit. It barely held together until Napoleon became dictator. The French Republic gave nothing of lasting value to the world except for maybe inspiration for meme musicals and Napoleon.

>The French Republic gave nothing of lasting value to the world
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Don't underestimate one of histories most important events.

In classical heroic fantasy, the heroes are on the defensive. So if there is an invader, it has to be an Empire. Because the only reason you invade is to build an empire.

If it's not a big enemy group. They're called bandits.

>BEHEAD ALL THE NOBLES
How Progressive.

Well the other reason that empires are always the bad guys is because the people who create the settings are liberal cucks/perfidious jews, but we won't get into that.

In my setting I intend to play in a few months when the DM seat opens up, the players will be working for an empire who's up against another empire. The underdog angle comes from the empire the players working for thinks it's going to lose and get swallowed by the other empire.

Three things that never happened? That's 2000 George.

>Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Watered down versions of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. It was a revolution by and for retards.

In classical heroic fantasy, the heroes are on the defensive
I hope you actually know whatever you just said isn't true

Read more, you pathetic whining idiot.

>democracy is a sham used to mask rule by the elites, guys!
>that's why we need a system where elites just rule openly instead!

Corruption goes hand-in-hand with decreased popular accountability, i.e. autocracy. Just look at how crippling a problem corruption within the ruling elite is for China, which is far and away the most prosperous and best-led autocracy in the world.

Are you sure you know what "autocracy" means?

Also human rights, constitution and other fundaments of modern democracies. Still Napoleon gave it some direction to end The Terror. I would say that the Second French Revolution was the most important one as it gave way for modern society.

You can certainly have it be it either way but kingdoms can be made to look petty and static, so conservative that they are just fading away, where as an empire can be seen as something vibrant and healthy, at least if it's the roman kind where there's a lot of inner competition, lots of different peoples to please and keep part of the empire, and expanding trade and territories, who while are conquered by force keeps with the "non-static" part alive. That's one way to make empires look better than kingdoms.

Oh I won't deny that it was on of history's most important events. Where we digress is that you seem to think that it was a moment of triumph whereas I recognize it as one of humankinds greatest misteps.

He is right tough, in a democracy it is expected from you that you involve yourself with politics. In autocracy you are expected to follow your orders.

Because republics tend to be much better places to live than more authoritarian states. The different incentive structure for the leaders encourages them to devote more resources to improve the lives of the average person than in a dictatorship.

No that was giving women voting rights. Their entire gender is biologically hard wired to want everyone to take turns at winning. If you win too much a female will naturally want someone else to win. Now obviously men will feel the same way about this because no one likes winners, but men will also want the losers to earn their victories, where as women are content handing it out.

I've read it before and don't see how the views are that contradictory to my own except that he stresses the rule of law over both peoples and kings more in the process than I would.

Nothing in it says princes can't be good: it mostly says they ought to be.

Depiction of the Cyrodilic Empire vary from game to game and even in universe. Morrowind they're there, but aren't overtly bringing the hammer down on shit that is otherwise outlawed in the rest of the Empire proper. Oblivion they're ostensibly the good guys but totally unable to deal with imminent demon invasion. Skyrim makes a case for either or depending on who you agree with (that's an entire other topic for another time). So I'd list them as mostly good but changes depending on the times.

You can have a multi national empire without totalitarianism or even authoritarianism.
Look for Austra-Hungary, for example, or the Central Empires during the 19th century. You will need a central figure like a Royal family, but the entire structure can be decentralized.
They will not be very efficient, however.

>Spot the American exceptionalist
They were different ideals for a different situation. One with a long history of feudalism, not just some empty frontier where you can just do as you please. Liberty speaks for itself, equality refers to the legal abolition of noble privileges. Fraternity refers to the birth of nationalism and the unification of the country against its many enemies (levée en masse).

>It was a revolution by and for retards.
It was a revolution by and for people who didn't have the luxury of letting others fight it for them, nor the luxury of near endless land and resources. It's almost as if different circumstances lead to different ideals and different means to pursue them or something!

>B-But it was evil because they killed six gorillion nobles because they were jealous of their wealth ;__;