On Worldbuilding: How do Empires Work? [ Fire Nation l Roman l Mongols ] PART 1

at last the Dark Lord's evil empire has been established and its show lasts into eternity why what do you mean why why would it last forever because will conquer everyone and everyone's just gonna like accept that well don't play by the rules snowflake new country and how do you stay in power exactly that power fear is that really an efficient long-term administration strategy I mean don't let me tell you how to do your job as Dark Lord but have you ever considered a propaganda mill people are surprisingly easy to convince or maybe an inter marital alliance control the production of major resources well not exactly as the Dark Lord fought through this at all well he came up with the whole no flag no country thing I thought that was pretty good what keeps an empire working they featuring any number of stories particularly in science fiction and fantasy sprawling across planets and galaxies or hulk continents but when it comes to world building them honestly books have a pretty shocking track record of these amorphous powers that just exist and work because plot in part two will actually be looking at how empires rise and fall but today in part one we'll be looking at how they work while creates a realistic Empire and prevent it from collapsing so we'll be focusing on the three C's communication control and commerce these are by no means the only things in Empire needs but they are three important pillars towards stability this video comes as a special request of one of my absolutely amazing patrons and discord Ahmad sarcastic Geum who is actually doing his PhD thesis and the stuff so he helped me write the video if you'd like to suggest a topic of your own then there's a link to my patreon down in the description we would love for you to come join the community now to be very clear the first and most important thing to do when you're world building an empire and you want it to be realistic is to study the accounts of real historical empires no not those ones this video will be only an introduction it would be impossible to truly answer this sort of question in totality it'll introduce relevant points and questions of contention but studying how real empires worked why they succeeded why they fell we'll give you the best possible brief and writing your own so communication one question to answer when thinking about your Empire is how quick and effective is its communication between the different governmental powers across the Empire between the government and its citizens and communication between citizens across distances which we'll get to in more detail on our part on control in empires biggest advantage against its smaller enemies within and without is its ability to draw on a larger population for its military more resources a diverse range of resources and intellectual minds for strategy and invention however this advantage can be nullified if you haven't researched husbandry I mean this advantage can be nullified if they can't effectively coordinate and communicate quickly with larger borders than a usual state quick and effective communication in the military is vital to bringing forces from across the state to combat its rivals one of the advantages of kuvira's earth Empire in Legion of Korra was its use of trains across the earth Kingdom this made communication between the provinces and central government with kuvira it's hid a lot easier forces could be quickly mobilized without the ability to efficiently coordinate resources during times of drought and famine it can easily lead to riots chaos and even rebellion the Roman Empire fell for a myriad of reasons but the strengthening of the urban centres outside Rome led to the central authority of Rome itself decreasing making the coordination of resources in the Western Roman Empire a lot more difficult as famine and plague struck the region it was less equipped to deal with it contributing to riots and its eventual sack finally communication to citizens is vital to the coordination of economic or governmental policy and its implementation legal reforms curfews new taxes the ability to spread propaganda which is surprisingly important or gather opinions and Democratic votes from across the state this is partly what they mean when they talk about the reason an empire fell is because they were stretched too thin they lost that ability to coordinate and efficiently communicate so munication is clearly important but how does your empire maintain this effective communication this will depend heavily on the context of your empire if your empire is land based in a low-tech world then consider the phrase all roads lead to Rome the Romans built a huge network of roads across the empire with communication and coordination in mind in a pseudo industrial era trains and Telegraph's become an incredibly important form of communication over distance in James sa Corey Slava thand wakes communication between Earth Mars and the belt is done by tightbeam this huge laser system across the solar system to transmit information now whatever the method of communication in your sci-fi or fantasy Empire be a technological or magical what really matters is the speed and amount of information that can easily travel this has two important effects on a the effectiveness of central government and be stability and the desire for self-governance we will get to that second effect in our part on control this is where we talk about how you should have at least five different town centers by the Imperial age I mean the wind world building an empire the speed and amount of information that can travel throughout it will determine how the institutional power is set up who reports to who where are they based what informations delivered how long do they take to respond and what decisions are they allowed to make based on that see empires are these huge cumbersome things with a thousand metaphorical tentacles and a million fingers in a million pies if all legal economic and policy decisions are made by a single institutionalized power like an emperor or supreme leader Mischka we're not only communication is slow but government powers can't send a lot of information very easily this can lead to inefficient government with more decisions to be made by that one body in the time to communicate to their decisions back and forth and inefficient communication least all the problems we previously discussed part of the success of Tiber Septim Serra Dalek Empire in the elderscrolls was that it recognized it would be inefficient to have an extremely strong central government that made all the decisions it's communication was too slow often on horseback and not enough information could easily travel to be an effective system as a result government became relatively decentralized while the emperor was the ultimate authority communication and decisions were and effective because provinces will largely live to make their own decisions provided they obeyed the law only a fraction of direct government was left to the impro and when things did go wrong and decisions were needed to be made by their central authority it was quickly decided because they weren't needing to manage the entire empire and was quickly communicated with the Emperor being situated in the geographical center of the Empire a great historical example of this is the Ching dynasty in China the centralized power was largely limited to war criminal proceedings Texas and some major industrial projects like waterways and bridges beyond that management was often quite local because we're communicating large amounts of information is slower a more decentralized government is often a more effective way of dealing with local issues like economic downturn property disputes or criminal proceedings in contrast quick and effective communication across the empire allows for a more centralized government now you might think this means that a successful empire in a fantasy series with swords and horses and carriages must have a decentralized power structure but some authors have actually used their magic system to subvert this expected set up in Santa Sion's way of Kings there's this thing called span reads which are a comparatively fast way of transmitting a large amounts of writing across great distances allowing decisions to be made from anywhere within the kingdom with speed by geometric system can affect how your empire governs and communicates in a number of other ways as well perhaps magicians can project their thoughts into the minds of citizens how would this affect your use of propaganda and would this make stopping the spread of rebellious ideas are harder with the Empire have to make sure that it hired all of these telepathic mages to work for it creating this class of elite propagandists in society it's important to consider how the fantastical elements of your story change how a government body would be administered if the abilities make certain duties easier or harder to carry out then this can make your empire more effective or give it a weak point for its enemies to exploit how quickly and effectively the government powers can respond to threats inside and outside the Empire is one links through which the author can develop a sense of sitting for the reader it's not just about military might what magical technological or administrative element of your Empire's communication means it is able to outmaneuver its enemies I mean aside from the damn Mongolian mounted Archer nothing secondly control while control is vital to the legitimacy of any government anywhere the vast land masses bearden continents or planets or whole galaxies that empires can preside over means the ability to assert that control is especially vital but what is control really it's easy to say collecting taxes is control but successfully collecting tax is often evidence of an empires control but it doesn't actually show how when Empire maintains that empires form obviously by absorbing different people groups into the same state and shockingly this can cause problems because some people don't like that because of this in terms of world building you as the writer have to ask why do people stay in the Empire why do they pay their taxes why do they not rebel most importantly how does the Empire the favorite answer of every evil empire in fiction is terror people obey because gulag but this raises more question than it really gives answers an empire based on terror can leave citizens feeling like rebellion is a better option and how do they keep a widespread expensive military presence that is repeatedly needing to be replenished and why do these people join the army anyway when they clearly think it's pretty evil where are they getting the army from empires that have historically ruled with pretty much nothing but terror have not lasted very long but we aren't talking about evil empires today that's more a writing trope that deserves an on writing video this is about realistic empires so history makes clear that successful empires often maintain control of groups they absorbed through peaceful or extortionate annexation or conquest by making it preferable for them to be in the Empire than outside of it it's easily the most effective way to this can be done in any number of ways in the case of the British Empire it was highly oppressive at times but the economic opportunity and access to world trade that are provided was attractive to many people in the states that had colonized under the Mongol Empire most citizens were secure and free to practice their own religion and Osiris the great citizens were free from the threat of slavery which you know is a bit of a low bar but it's a good bar to have for society what's critical as writers is that we show this within the narrative that we ground the Empire in a sense of realism in the experiences of everyday citizens in legend of korra we see that bolin joins the earth empire because it brings food and supplies in times of strife to towns who need it in the mote in god's eye Niven does this by scaling down his answer to the question in the experiences of the perspective character commander Roderick Blaine in leading an effort to put down a rebellion he sees what happens to societies that leave the Empire people stay loyal to it because without it society returns to economic collapse and disorder and security is a strong motivator for people to support the Empire but government control in an empire isn't just about your peeper king sweet potato ball murdered peasant in the case of dictatorships it's about keeping the people who keep you in power preferring to be part of your dictatorship than anyone elses different people at different levels of government and society have different reasons for preferring to be part of the Empire and the ruling body needs to account for that and multitude of groups that keep people in power in a multitude of ways maybe some are bribes some believe in security and some have a strong belief in the state religion there is a great video by CP G gray that I will link down in the description below that you should watch explaining this kind of concept in more depth why people join the Empire can also be intimately connected to your characters motivation why they assist the war effort and it's a common character arc and Dances with Wolves type stories like The Last Samurai to have these motivations challenged resulting in a character change like them leaving the Empire but those sort of stories are relatively common if you're looking for a more unique character arc perhaps they aren't part of the Empire but they go through a character change that makes them want to be a part of it but why people stay isn't just about making the Empire attractive sometimes it can be easier to make a not living in the Empire attractive like of the barbarians outside the Empire organized their farms like this and I mean propaganda we're talking about propaganda most authors will be aware of the oxymoronic Ministry of Truth in all wells in 1984 which kept the population under control by filtering the information available to them manufacturing crises and propagating stories about how awful or evil the outside Oceania is because of our recent historical relationship with propaganda particularly through the Nazis and the Soviet Union it's easy to imagine that any Empire that uses propaganda is automatically an evil empire type but propaganda has a long history as being a vital part of a successful Empire right back to Sargon of Akkad the ability of the government to control how their expansion is viewed by the populace is powerful we'll begin with a pop quiz on our great march of civilization what year did fire lord sozin battle the air nation army the air nomads didn't have a formal military sozin defeated them by ambush I don't know how you could possibly know more than our national history book like how the war against separatists is depicted in Star Wars Hasina's barbarians against freedom and liberty when in reality they were a lot more complex but propaganda does present a curious problem for writing characters especially if they're your protagonists who come from within the Empire why wouldn't your characters believe how it depicts the opposition or the military of everyone else does in the dragon prince the main character Kellum doesn't believe that all elves are really monsters and he doesn't really believe the war is justified but there isn't really a reason given as to why he doesn't while everyone else around him does a great example of doing propaganda well is Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender he genuinely believes the Fire Nation is spreading prosperity to the world and it takes a long and difficult journey to see through that propaganda and approach the reality having in character easily see through their empires propaganda where others can't isn't bad writing but it can feel jarring for the reader if they think that the protagonists is just magically more intelligent or more moral than everyone else it can be more interesting to instead have them seeing the reality as part of their character change but it's also important to remember that propaganda becomes a less effective when people can freely research things for themselves either through magic or through technology and thus effective propaganda becomes increasingly more expensive for the state now within the question of asking why citizens don't rebelled two important concepts to consider as a world builder are self-governance and sovereignty how does your empire accommodate these two sentiments which have been forces of revolution all throughout history see people don't really like it when they're being ruled by people they don't know or they didn't choose or have any cultural or societal connections to maybe you do I don't know your finishes but groups of people who feel this tribalistic bond with one another usually wish to govern themselves as a tribal group in the modern day we share this tribalistic bond with those in the same state or nation or even continent but this presents a particular problem for Empires who by nature absorb a number of different tribalistic groups now in some fictional cases like the Dalek Empire self-governance isn't really an option and they rule through absolute terror but historically Terra hasn't really worked as a long-term administrative strategy no a more effective strategy is actually allowing a degree of self-governance Alexander the Great permitted rulers of conquered provinces to remain in their position as long as they paid their taxes and obeyed the law proclaim your loyalty if you wish to keep in your fictional Empire this could mean maybe not slopping the hit off the king that the people of a certain conquered province really love appointing one of the local noble houses as governors or creating a local democratic body that's subordinate to the central authority or emperor but it's still allowed to make decisions or maybe giving them the full rights of citizens rather than being enslaved because people tend to prefer not being enslaved what matters above all is that when people feel that when issues around their home are raised they're actually heard and addressed with decentralized government they're far more equipped to deal with local problems it helps for that feeling of self-governance over their own lands and a fierce even if they're technically ruled by some far-off Emperor but this in mind they are less likely to rebel and more likely to but finally this is where we talk about what communication between citizens and the second effect of the speed and amount of communication means for control stability and the desire for self-governance so superior sci-fi technology or advanced magic can make communication over long distances extremely fast like a sounds act like phones and scents elantris or the Stargate technology of the Ancients in sg-1 allows instant digital communication across light-years through wormholes this means that firstly if the urgency isn't necessarily there if the central power can immediately receive information immediately receive a lot of things and immediately decide they don't have the same practical motivation to decentralize as an empire would when communication is slow but more importantly in these worlds where information easily travels the notion of self-governance really begins to change as what people consider their community changes the people they have that tribalistic bond to it seems to mean more than just their village and that witch who lives in that hovel down by the river they can feel connected to their whole state their whole nation and maybe one day the entire planet in the case of galactic senate's and the like the result of accelerated communication between citizens is that people are often willing to accept a higher level of centralized power because it's still self-governance as long as that authority comes from their now wider community that they consider themselves a part of but even an economically sound an attractive Empire where you don't have to be a slave will have its insurgents the ungrateful sods whose greatest advantage in rebellion is the ability to strike quickly with a larger border and land mass a vital element of control is being able to respond to threats within and without swiftly if an empire can't mobilize forces quickly then it effectively gives the insurgents time to rebel and set up an effective defense by which time you're essentially fighting an independent state this is closely connected to the communication fates as we spoke about before in the case of sci-fi empires that spanned planets or whole galaxies this really becomes a problem when enemies are light-years or half a galaxy away what is truly preventing people from repeatedly rebelling solving this problem is partly why the Protoss Empire from Starcraft was so effective using warp gates they could teleport troops anywhere around the Empire throughout the galaxy nullifying the advantage that any resistance would have in assembling quickly likewise the Mongol Empire was known for how swiftly it can move forces are taking days or weeks earlier than expected and the Romans built a whole network of roads to aim Swift troop movement throughout the Empire another method which is funnily enough often underrated when it comes to writing and world building is assimilation this is helping absorbed people's wish to stay a part of the Empire by creating a unifying cultural identity that they can be a part of this is often done in two ways a imposing an ideology this is commonly a religion like we see in Warhammer 40k they have to recognize the imperial cult as their religion or die likewise the early rashidun caliphate made it preferable for those who chose to be Muslim or be introducing unifying cultural practices one example of this is Rome and how they created the Coliseum with this in mind it created a cultural tradition in sport that all people could get behind and appreciate creating unifying activities or imposing certain cultural practices on absorbed peoples creates a new cultural identity for the whole Empire the more engrained these practices become in some cases they can help people feel part of the Empire however making these practices too cumbersome can also have the opposite effect and be oppressive and finally let's talk about everyone's favorite topic economics you know I say they're sarcastically but like eighty thousand of you people watched a video on cabbage economics so what you doing man what you're doing with your life so commerce economic stability of a given area is one of the greatest indicators of crime rebellion and peace and there is a good reason for that it's not that people aren't concerned with what their country is doing overseas or how much corruption there is at higher levels of government but if they have a good job a stable income and prospects for the future then they are more likely to turn a blind eye not even kidding there's a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to people writing over bread to the average squalor in peasant it matters less to them whether their tax money is heading to Narnia or the Teletubbies Parliament it's just another person going King and Commerce is closely connected to communication as well one of the big advantages of having an empire is that it creates an opportunity for a wider market to buy and sell to with often lower tariffs well some of the time and the ability to communicate easily at distance makes trading easier the market more competitive meaning that overall people tend to be more economically prosperous though the caveat to this should be that empires are also often based on bringing wealth back to the homeland so it doesn't necessarily mean that all people are always better off but in creating a working and successful Empire the government has a bigger role than just not taxing people to death to draw on John Locke's two treatises of government a large reason that people want to be part of the civil state in this case the Empire is that it protects property and facilitates trade this can be done in any number of ways the chain Tennessee distributed licensed traders to help the populace know who to trust the romans stamped goods like oils to officiate than when they were shipped throughout the empire to help people know when they were being tricked and the ability to take claims against another individual in a fair court system is critical to a free functioning economy and the sad thing is is that there really aren't many examples of fictional empires being shown to facilitate and protect trade the cyrillic empire and the other schools does pretty much everything that the ancient Romans did but nothing unique if you're looking to distinguish your empire from others infection then perhaps showing how your Empire deals with Commerce would help establish it as a more realistic Empire through a relatively unique lens it would establish why people prefer to be a part of it why are there survived and what it does that other states around it don't one thing to be aware of though as a writer when world-building realistic empires is change empires change constantly one relatively good example of this on the larger scale possible is the Imperium of man in Warhammer 40k this million planets wide Empire is so big that it barely holds together there's opposition to the council of terror widespread rebellion and the Horus heresy the whole system of government was destroyed in the great scouring and it's military and economy was repeatedly collapsing being formed and reformed territory being lost and gained and split between different powers and factions within the Empire overall it could hardly be called a contiguous Empire for all it changed likewise the Roman Empire is often imagined as this cohesive and stable political body but to be honest its history is so tumultuous its culture was constantly changing that the people at the top and the bottom switching around the economy shifting and its focus and aims changing there is no single arc to its history it has repeated trials collapses and Reformation all throughout its time history is never simple an empires are nearly never perfectly stable to put it simply history is complicated empires go through changes in borders religion politics economy and culture and it's important to show this change in the environment with evidence of the past perhaps there are monuments to figures of an old predominant religion that has since died off or the architecture of the marketplaces meant to facilitate an old kind of trade the Empire no longer needs perhaps the roads are built to reach certain mines which have since run dry if the empire begins to lose any of these things that we've discussed then it's more likely to fracture and collapse it's important to keep in mind how the events of the story also affect each of these things how it affects the Empire's operation if there are belly in destroys what they see as a vital target to communication but the reader sees no change in the Empire's ability to coordinate its forces or resources or government then it can feel like there was no real consequence to that dramatic beat the actions of the characters in the story should actually affect the Empire so what have we discussed today firstly the speed and amount of communication across an empire is vital to effective coordination this can be altered by magic or technology slower communication often result in decentralized power secondly it's important to consider how the magic system affixed how government works and the challenges it faces thirdly an empire can establish control through terror making it preferable to be a part of it propaganda about the outside allowing self-governance creating feeling of sovereignty and assimilation the capacity to mobilize troops quickly is crucial to control fourthly a healthy economy is an indicator of stability within an empire and a wider market may make its citizens better off than those outside the Empire successful empires often protect property rights and facilitate trade theft Lee empires change and culture economy politics and religious makeup and it can help with realism for its description to reflect that but that is all for me I know another horrendously long video and there's gonna be a part two it's because turns out that making videos about how empires work and rise and fall is kind difficult you're essentially summarizing all of human history next time we'll be discussing how umpires rise and fall question of the day which is your favorite historical Empire and why I'm terribly cliche but I love the Roman Empire I just look at it and who can possibly resist to that military formation if you enjoy this then go check out my other on writing videos or come support me on patreon seriously I can only really make this sort of educational content because of their support thank you so much to all of you who do already do and if you like this kind of content then a couple of dollars a month would honestly mean the world in the meantime come follow me over on Twitter Facebook email my stuff you made of the address and links in the description below stay nerdy sub furies and I will see you in the future

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 1,069,793

Keywords: avatar, legend of korra, legend of aang, the last airbender, atla, earthbending, waterbending, night fury, toothless, dragon, star wars, empire, first order, galactic empire, republic, separatist, dragon prince, Bolin, Aang, Firelord, 1984, propaganda, Roman Empire, Mongol Empire, Akkadian Empire, Qing Dynasty, China, new world order, worldbuild, explained, lore, theory, fall of rome, monty python, age of empires, wololo

Id: 51MWp0Hgo90

Length: 26min 55sec (1615 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 29 2018