empire? whats in a name

[StuartBurchell]

I am reading Evan Currie's Odyssey One and King of Thieves in order during the lunch hour at work on Kindle, unfortunately, Currie is so focussed on the bioweapon the bad guys use to wage war with, the bad guys only appear in the third book and their political system is an Empire.

When I first read the book, I got the impression that Currie simply named them as an empire as a quick, lazy descriptor to say these guys are the bad guys because they are an empire, as I am pretty sure he speed writes and has no-one to edit or proof read for him and self publishes.

By contrast, David Weber has his protagonist Honor Harrington serving a Kingdom which later becomes an Empire and their enemy was initially the People's Republic of Haven.

For me on the book I'm writing, the bad guys are a Federal Republic, in name at least, being a military expansionists. I chose a Republic because Rome was a republic before it was an empire. And it is a matriarchal based clan democracy (they had tried kings, or rather, queen based ruling system and found it lacking). It's a bit complicated to explain because ATM it's only background info, I haven't fully got into it yet, that's for a later book, as I have no PoV character at the centre of the Republic.

We have had good Federations (Star Trek) and bad (Blake's 7). Star Trek's two great bad guys, the Klingons and the Romulans were empires. Babylon 5 had everything, I think. Earth Alliance, Minbari Federation, Centauri Republic (despite having an emperor), Narn Regime and Vorlon Empire.

So my question is for SF writers only (fantasy books are usually kingdom based), what is the chosen system of your bad guys and why?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Mine has an empire, and it's not as simple as good and bad but shifts with time and allegiances.

*dons anorak*

It's not about intrinsically good an bad, it's about structures. In space opera we have a genre defined as happening in space, which means we need a backdrop encompassing space - therfore we need a structure that can hold together across great expanses. That leaves, to my mind, empires, republics and monarchies. Within that we can play with totalitarian, libertine etc etc but by and large there has to be an overarching structure or the space civilisation can't continue, which means space opera as a genre loses its definition.

 

[tinkerdan]

I think one point in using these terms is because they are familiar.
lets take these
Power Structures.

Confederation
Empire
Federation
Hegemony
Unitary state

You might pick one of these because they are familiar terms when you create your world (universe). You could redefine them but that would be a lot of work ( you say well yes and not lazy) but I say that could become confusing. If you redefine them you then require an adequate explanation of them to inform the reader and now they are no longer familiar. One of the points of using known terms is to use something recognizable. So it might be best to stick with what people know. You chose Empire because people know what you mean by an empire or they can look it up.

Now if you truly are lazy then you might make assumptions about empires that are wrong and this will show up in the work. So the biggest question might be whether the empire as described still falls in the realm of empires.

But before you get carried away think about these
Power Sources (that variously lie below the structure.)
Authoritarian state
Democracy
Monarchy
Oligarchy
Others(what's left over)

And below these are more subdivisions that might come into effect.

So when you say Empire there is a structure that it general adheres to; but below it in its power source or base there can be a mix of those elements inside it making those structures just the face of what they appear to be in their expansiveness.

Really it boils down to a familiar label from among in my instance five labels; so choosing the one that best fits might seem to be lazy; but that seems mostly inconsequential since the underlying structure is open for further interpretation and it's likely how I would handle that under-layer that would show how lazy I am.

Sometimes it takes only a little to move from Empire to Hegemony
Or from confederation to federation to unity state to hegemony.
All possibly contingent to various changes in the underlying source and even possibly having the top five be under dispute by various other members of similar structures; because they don't quite agree on the perception of the underlying sources.

So the choice of Empire might be more expedient than it is lazy.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think that, by its very nature, an Empire must consist of one country ruling over a group of other countries, so obviously there’s potential for inequality and oppression built in. But it needn’t be hellish or even especially obvious: both the Roman and British Empires survived by keeping some regions much as they were before entering the empire, so that the local rulers could stay in place so long as they paid tribute to their new masters and obeyed Rome or London. I suppose another point is that, in an Empire, it’s probably rather difficult to leave.

My understanding is that a federation is a group of states, but with no one state given preference over the others: all are linked by the same ultimate control but have equal priority and get a lot of leeway under it. I don’t think “Commonwealth” requires a certain sort of government, as it’s just “for the common good” but it seems to imply a republic. I am not sure what a hegemony is: it seems to be the default term used by people who think America is the source of all evil, but my understanding is that it just means one country ruling over others. It seems a negative term.

That said, would anyone evil actually want to call themselves an empire? The standard phrase for a dictatorship seems to be “Democratic republic of X”, and “People’s democratic republic” if it’s communist, by which you can guess that it’s neither democratic nor belonging to the people (and arguably not a republic but an oligarchy). The evil empire of the Lemming Men in Space Captain Smith is called the Greater Galactic Happiness and Friendship Co-Operative, to show that it is obviously a dreadful, squalid tyranny.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

In an Empire, it’s probably rather difficult to leave.

Even in a Federation as the American Civil War illustrates. The USA is a bit more than a Federation as they have client countries that are not autonomous, not States and can't leave.
Possibly someone can leave the Swiss Confederation.
The British Commonwealth is a rather different thing to the defunct Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
A "Nation" leaving anything has always been problematic.
Ireland, Scotland, Wales of U.K. The Channel Is. and Isle of Man are not actually in UK, though British and different from each other. Gibraltar, Falklands and other places are different again.

Empires are not inherently Evil. Neither are Monarchies, Communist states etc. A "Democracy" isn't inherently good either, It's just non-Democracies can be bad for large parts of the population. But this can happen in Democracies too. There are many flavours of Democracies and plenty of times and places when they didn't work. They don't scale well. Hence the Empire idea for Space Opera.
Churchill thought Democracy was a terrible system but that the other systems were worse.

 

[Nick B]

We have three human (post humans and baseline humans interact freely) factions - The Empire (totalitarian state), The Federation (anarcho capitalistic system) and The Protectorate (self governed systems watched over by a mighty military force).
None of the factions are good or evil. The political structure is complex and tense.
There is a single living intelligent alien race that have no interaction with humans except occasional hostilities.
So, no 'evil' faction.

 

[Loren]

Guilds. It started out as a federation of three planets, then things got wobbly and the federation fractured.

It could could have just as well been named cartels, leagues, or any other number of associations. Basically, each guild is in it for themselves and exists in a form of détente with low level skirmishes among themselves until one of them goes a wee bit too far.

I am not sure what you call them is really that important, but the dynamics they create is what is important.

 

[MWagner]

When I first read the book, I got the impression that Currie simply named them as an empire as a quick, lazy descriptor to say these guys are the bad guys because they are an empire, as I am pretty sure he speed writes and has no-one to edit or proof read for him and self publishes.

Empires are often made the baddies in pop culture because America has a strongly anti-empire foundation. Early Americans regarded their country as the alternative to the decadent and tyrannical European empires.

I think that, by its very nature, an Empire must consist of one country ruling over a group of other countries, so obviously there’s potential for inequality and oppression built in. But it needn’t be hellish or even especially obvious: both the Roman and British Empires survived by keeping some regions much as they were before entering the empire, so that the local rulers could stay in place so long as they paid tribute to their new masters and obeyed Rome or London. I suppose another point is that, in an Empire, it’s probably rather difficult to leave.

Some of the most peaceful and prosperous eras in humanity have been when many people lived under an empire. Rome is the obvious example. Even the first real empire, the Persian Empire, was a model of stability, peace, and prosperity in that part of the world compared to what came before (the Assyrians) and what came after (Alexander and the endless wars of the diadochi).

It's interesting that none of China's great states are referred to as empires. It seems an empire cannot be a single homogeneous state, but must contain distinct peoples and cultures within its domain.

I am not sure what a hegemony is: it seems to be the default term used by people who think America is the source of all evil, but my understanding is that it just means one country ruling over others. It seems a negative term.

A hegemon is a state so powerful compared to its rivals that is can effectively do as it pleases and get its own way, even if it doesn't directly control those around it. I suppose whether it's good or bad depends on what you think of the state. A hegemon should provide many of the benefits of an empire (peace, secure trade routes, suppression of lawlessness).

It all comes down to how we regard authority versus chaos. The cultural tradition of the West - particularly of the U.S. - fears authority more than chaos. But that's probably because things have been so stable and so prosperous for so long, that we've lost our dread of chaos and lawlessness, of petty lords bringing violence to the countryside and in every city, of travel and trade being mortally dangerous, and of recurrent famine from a lack of centralized food allocation.

 

[Ursa major]

One group of antagonists in my WiP is a rebel organisation. It's called the Hak... and they're back!

*cough*

As an aside....

It seems to me that there are different reasons why readers may need to know how one or more political entities are organised, and there are some why they may not be. In the first category are fictions where (as in the Honor Harrington series) the politics (of various states) play a very large part in determining what goes on and why (even where decisions are made contrary to what the 'politics' would naturally deliver). Where these do not play a part, the temptation is, as the OP suggests, to do vague/weak world building, where the readers' imaginations are being used to conjure up images.

But I think something else might also be happening for many of us in the northern hemisphere English speaking world: we're used to living in countries that are often identified by the political arrangements, namely the United States and the United Kingdom. (We also used to talk about the Soviet Union and may still talk about the Federal Republic aka Germany).) Strange as it may seem, there are other countries that are combined kingdoms (e.g. Malaysia, Spain) or united states (e.g. Brasil, Mexico), or federal republics, but we are either ignorant of these or are simply used to calling them by more specific names.

And as an aside to that aside.... Someone recently brought up the number of times we might use the word 'the' in our fiction. 'The' is usually one of those near-invisible words (as is 'said'), but can, by its overuse, make itself felt. I was interested if this problem affected my own fiction. What I found was:

1. Yes, sometimes it was overused.
2. One (unfortunate) reason it was overused was that it was often associated with vagueness or generalities: the major, the province, the woman, the enemy, the ally, the ship, the alien.... Of course, sometimes this is the correct way of tagging something (particularly where these somethings are incidental or present only briefly); but where something is important -- to the (PoV) characters as much as the story and the readers -- the text becomes more involving if the major's name, the province's name, the woman's name, the enemy's name, the ally's name, the ship's name, the alien's name... are used.

So if the politics are incidental, why not call that enemy empire/federation/kingdom/union/confederation by something intrinsic and unique to it? (And if you don't want to, try thinking what your story might be like with main character's called the protagonist, the best friend, the antagonist, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the mother, the child....)

(Please note: (the) 'Hak' was not chosen to make that "joke", although this does occur in the text; it was chosen for another reason, one appropriate to how its members see themselves.)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It's interesting that none of China's great states are referred to as empires. It seems an empire cannot be a single homogeneous state, but must contain distinct peoples and cultures within its domain.

Really?
China DOES have culturally, ethinically etc groups. Han is majority.
China HAS been an Empire.

USA might not like it said, but have many characteristics of Empire and Hegemony from 19th C. onwards.