Questions tagged [empire-building]
For questions about the conglomerations of areas or nations under the rule of one person or entity.
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Cultural identity in an Multi-cultural empire
I'm world-building for a universe. I just came up with Deals Best Kept, and I realized I wanted to have a bunch of fantasy races interact, be very culturally diverse and mixed, and also account for a ...
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How to stop empires with non-electrical communication from collapsing?
Background: If we look at the past (especially in countries from the early C.E.), a lot of empires collapsed for many different reasons. These reasons are mainly (not exclusively!) going to be an ...
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What configuration should the worlds of a long lasting galactic empire take in the galaxy?
I have come across many galaxy maps showing the dominion/borders of one empire or another in different works of fiction. The first that comes to mind is WH40k for which the galaxy map of the different ...
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How can I build a successful empire ruled by a malevolent ruler? [closed]
Right now, I'm trying to build an empire (based on byzantine) that is set as the main enemy.
In an empire, does the ruler interact with their people? What is their empire's history?
The empire I'm ...
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Making an Evil Empire not too humanized [closed]
In my world, there is an "evil" empire trying to expand its rule. However, in reality, they are just like any other empire expanding. Despite this, I still want to make them like a force the ...
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What kind of public works/infrastructure projects can recent high school graduates perform in a post-post apocalyptic setting?
My science-fantasy world has been devastated by monster attacks coming from various enormous pits in planet . The first lead to a total collapse of civilization and the next one, some 300 years later, ...
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Species modification [closed]
Let's say for purely cosmetic reasons, a group of people on Earth who wanted to colonize other worlds to form some kind of galactic empire decided to modify their outward appearance. Prior to doing ...
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Empire across the Himalayas
I was bouncing ideas off the wall about empires that could've plausibly existed in Asia if certain things went differently, and I stumbled across the very physical barrier of the Himalayas.
So my ...
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Space-Travel friendly weapons [closed]
When creating a background antagonist, there is a civilization of aliens who are trying to expand their space empire. They are not the typical "evil empire", but rather just an empire trying ...
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How Much is Too Much Land for One Province?
The Aurean Dominate is a sort of federated elective monarchy that rules all of the Planet Aurea (an approximately Earth-sized world but one where all the land is in the southern hemisphere and the ...
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Could a Preindustrial State Control an Entire Planet?
The Aurean Dominate is an empire controlling the entire planet Aurea and a scrap of the neighboring planet Awal (known as the Exarchate of Tifinagh). Aurea is around Earth-sized (although all of the ...
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Using a Royal Harem as a Bureaucratic Corps
Scribes and other literate administrators were a hot commodity in the ancient world. Whether they were Confucian Scholar-Gentry or Catholic Monks, the pre printing press world made whole social ...
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Could an empire be built around a desert?
I'm trying to make an empire that has a large (almost as big as the Sahara) desert in the middle of its boundaries. The capital would be found in the north near a mountain range, and the empire ...
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Could mass production of guns be possible by slaves?
I'm imagining a setting with 16th-17th century tech level. In this era, there's the rise of guns and blackpowder, and slavery too.
Slavery was used mostly for agricultural reasons, but there were a ...
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What is the safest and most extravagant place for an interstellar emperor to make his palace?
Every evil galactic empire has an emperor’s palace. From the Goa’uld to the Sith Empire to House Harkonnen, every emperor has one extremely lavish but heavily defended structure they call home.
My ...
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How can an interstellar empire prevent its subjects from obtaining advanced computer technology?
My interstellar empire, the Dynasty, draws some inspiration from the Gao’uld of Stargate. Encompassing the entirety of the Hyades cluster, it is ruled with an iron (or platinum) fist by the Sovereign-...
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How can human skin be the preferred material for the recording of daemonic texts?
The Sarkic empire was the superpower of the ancient world, spanning the globe across multiple continents and subjecting their people to their benevolent rule. Although they were an authoritarian ...
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Is it feasible to have enormous boarding schools to educate a world empire's children?
In my fictional world, humanity lives underground in a planet that is not Earth. The underground is solid rock with "burrows" of large size that house all life on this planet. Think of it ...
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What would two planets connected by traversable wormholes trade that is worth the travel risks?
I've posted here before about the realism of my wormholes and such, but I feel this question better fits the forums context of how it wants questions.
I have multiple wormholes that are within the ...
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Why would mechs be used in underwater combat but not on land?
In my world, the planet (which is not Earth, but is suitably Earth-like) has been besieged by deadly monsters for about 1000 years. Their initial attack lead to an apocalyptic scenario which took ...
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How could a world empire prevent rebellions with minimal bloodshed?
In the world I've thought of, monstrous beings more or less ended civilization on my planet. From the fires of this apocalyptic event, the world empire arose. It took over territory either by force or ...
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Is this space empire plausible? What flaws are most obvious? How can it be improved? [closed]
Humanity has access to a stargate of unknown origin. Each gate leads to a solar system from which other gates can be accessed, creating a kind of highway spanning some 300 systems. The travel time in ...
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How do I determine which areas of my empire would be richest and poorest? [closed]
In my book series, the Aurean Empire spans an entire Earth-sized world called Aurea (however, all of the landmass is on the southern hemisphere, so only that part is inhabited). Overall, the planet's ...
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Does This Geopolitical Power Balance Make it Look Like I am Promoting Colonialism? [closed]
The book series I'm working on can basically be summed up as a science-fantasy series that starts out leaning much more on the fantasy end of the spectrum (the first few books could best be described ...
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Which geographic areas within an empire produce the best soldiers?
In my book series, the Aurean Empire is a vast entity spanning an entire planet. I'm kind of wondering what parts of my empire would the Aureans draw their best soldiers from (for example, the Roman ...
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How Should Cuisine Vary Across a Geographically Diverse Empire?
The Argentolian Empire is a massive land that spans a region roughly the size of the continental United States. Located in the southern hemisphere of its planet, the north is generally tropical, the ...
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Rebuilding a collapsed empire
I am making a galaxy where humans have reached an age where everything is peaceful and paradise, like spanning thousands of planets. However, a disaster happened that caused all the worlds to be ...
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Modern-day Roman Empire [duplicate]
Before asking the question, let me give you some background. I am a big fan of Roman history, everything from the gladiators of the Colosseum to the writings Seneca, and the other day I was thinking ...
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Could a regularly erupting volcano create fertile soil for a fantasy empire to thrive?
I have recently learnt about the flooding of the Nile and the irrigation around it, enabling plentiful crops by depositing nutrient rich silt during bronze age Egypt. I have also learnt about volcanic ...
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How do you make a Roman-esque style army more adaptive to situations even if they've never confronted them?
So in my fantasy world, my Emperor has recently come into control of a declining empire and managed to restore its control over the continent he lives on. This empire, a continuation of previous ...
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What events caused the formation of the 18th century Dutch-Scandinavian Republic?
I'm in the early stages of an alternate history novel (and at a push a light fantasy) in which I like the idea of a unified Scandinavian Nation/Republic to compete with Britain and France for control ...
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In a decadent galactic empire with instantaneous communication, how would the most remote planet gain their independence?
In a very large and decadent galactic empire (think of Asimov's foundation empire), a new technology leap allows planet's government bodies to communicate instantaneously across the galaxy. It can be ...
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Convince happy nomads to settle down
The population of my world is well fed and water can be plentifully scavenged from the plant life. We live in a wonderful tropical utopia that boasts a large nomadic population. The weather systems ...
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What drastic changes would occur if an architect went to ancient times [closed]
My character Ray was transported to the most fertile region of Africa about 569 B.C.
He was born in into a small farming family and learned about the history and evolution of farming because his ...
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Establishing an empire in a world with flying ships
In What would an age of sail flying ship look like?, my answer suggested ships that fly using 'keels' that utilise a difference in physics to that of our own world to achieve flight.
Now, I am trying ...
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How could a imperial dynasty keep a loose collection of pirates, raiders, etc unified?
The Artarkan Star Empire is a loose confederacy of stellar warlords, pirates, slavers, and other groups lying on the edge of known space. While most of these groups hail from one common culture (...
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Post-apocalyptic war between two empires isolated for 2 centuries with a vast ocean.How would it play out? [closed]
In fictional world, a nuclear apocalypse has destroyed old nations and ravaged civilization. Refugees (and colonial settlers from before) from the mainland fled to unaffected Africa and North America/...
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Demon Empire annexs North America. How would the world react in 1972? [closed]
I had an urge to make an alternate history, which is an alien space bats scenario.
Here some worldbuilding that I made.
In another dimension, a planet is divided by 4 space filling empires. Theis ...
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How to build a plumbing system in a magic world? [closed]
How do I build a plumbing system in a magic world? Because a lot of stories seem to completely ignore this and I don't want to make my story like that.
The magic in this world allows you to create ...
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What's an appropriate title for a person who deals with conflicts of an Empire? [closed]
What would be a good title for someone who works closely with an emperor, is skilled in diplomacy, deals with different factions and individuals in the Empire's capital city to resolve issues, while ...
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Could an empire control the whole planet with today's comunication methods?
I remember watching a documentary some time ago and at one point they were talking about how empires were limited to a certain size since there was no way to communicate across the empire quickly and ...
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Possibility of an alliance between Rome and China
For plot reasons, I need there to be global-ish peace by the 1700's. Obviously, the easiest and best way to do this, is union under the system of Pax Romana.
However, at this particular time (about ...
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how can I replace the center of power in Christendom from Rome to Constantinople?
I, Emperor Lucifer the 1st, am the undisputed ruler of the Byzantine Empire, better known as the True Roman Empire. To secure my dominance, I plan to cement myself as the ruler of all Christendom in ...
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Emperor that nominates a council: ensuring status quo among the members
Great questions bring great answers... and also more questions. This one is a follow-up on Emperor that nominates a council that nominates the next emperor by Timst.
I suggest, before answering, ...
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Emperor that nominates a council that nominates the next emperor?
As part of the political making of a country I'm working on, I was imagining the following structure:
The country is ruled by an emperor/king, who has near-absolute authority over the land.
The ...
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How can I prevent semi-independent royal families from rebelling against the empire?
This global-spanning empire is divided among five royal families, each headed by a prince. The emperor himself leads the empire, with the five princes serving under him. While they owe fealty to the ...
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Ways to keep a fantasy cold war between dragons and knight sorcerers cold?
So here's the scenario. I have two rather large and evenly matched empires: one led by human knight sorcerers with bloodline based magic and another by dragons, who are fairly similar to the dragons ...
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How likely is it that an interplanetary empire could exist in the future?
I'm building a world with an interplanetary empire (with an emperor as head-of-state), but I wonder how realistic it is for one to even exist.
An empire, according to Google, is defined as:
an ...
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A Theocratic Megacorporation? [closed]
Imagine if a televangelist somehow managed to amass a devoted global following and used the funds from the offerings he gained from them to turn his cult into an N.G.O. superpower. How exactly would ...
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Why does my island nation start building bridges? [closed]
I’ve got a fantasy world in which the landmass is essentially a large series of archipelagos and island chains. For a real world comparison, think the Hawaiian islands in range of size and distance ...
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