“I don’t know anything about any empires except Elakebassis,” Jace said, though if he were to be perfectly honest, he’d have to admit that he didn’t know much about that one.
He knew that Faresia was supposed to be a part of it, and that people who came from Elakebassis were the swellest of the swells in Keeper’s Cove. He had a vague picture of the great circle of the world in his head, where Elakebassis was a landmass… in his mind, a slightly larger island… far to the south, near to the center.
“Elakebassis was once part of it, but then, the whole world was, practically,” Katryn said. “That’s why we call it the Great Empire. No one’s sure where the original capital was. It got moved around a lot, for political reasons. Elakebassis claims its heritage and the historical basis for its own empire from its connection to the Great Empire, but really they were just one province and not even a particularly important one. That’s what spared them in the Falling, and that’s probably how they ended up in such a sweet spot… they still had a lot of their wealth and infrastructure intact while the rest of the empire’s holdings were plunging into dark times.”
“What happened?” Jace asked.
He knew exactly as much about this “Falling” as he did about any empire, great or otherwise, that wasn’t Elakebassian. But as unworldly as Jace was, he wasn’t wholly ignorant. He understood that empires falling into dark times were bound to be exciting.
“There was a disputed succession,” Kat said. Jace swallowed the urge to groan. That sounded political, not exciting. “Well, I mean, they all were. Emperors never named heirs if they could avoid it. They had to avoid even favoring one close friend or servant over the others lest the empire itself declare him the heir apparent. Because as soon as the plotters and planners thought they knew who the next emperor would be, well… that was it for the old emperor. So, even when they did name an heir, they tended to be a little ambivalent about it, or they waited until the last possible moment, or they kept the nomination a secret.
“The only halfway smooth successions happened when the reigning emperor elevated his successor himself and stepped aside. Otherwise, there’d usually be at least one rival claimant putting himself forward with some evidence of how he was the real favored heir. Usually it was nothing more than a little hiccup in the grand scheme of things, because the emperor’s chosen one would have all kinds of support lined up… from the nobles, from the senate, from the military, from the merchants… beforehand. If he didn’t, that just meant that someone else did, and their claim would win out. The struggles could be bloody, but they were brief.”
“But what if those groups all had different ideas about who should be the emperor?” Jace asked.
“Ah,” Katryn said. “Now, you’re really onto something there. Whoever controlled the armies had a huge advantage, obviously, but by ancient law the emperor could only be seated by the senate, since… according to the popular farce… the emperor was nothing but the highest servant of the people. The military could bring force to bear against the senate, but an emperor who did that would never be loved by the people, and it’s harder to rule if you’re not. The merchants controlled the trade routes, and the nobles were responsible for raising taxes… a massed revolt by either group would be disastrous to the ravenous beasts of the imperial bureaucracy. And that’s not even going into the clergy, or the matter of popular opinion, which probably wasn’t the most important thing but had to count for something.”
“So if there were two people who wanted to be emperor and they both had some support…” Jace said.
“Two’s nothing,” Katryn said. “With all the game pieces being split just two ways, one or the other of them would have a clear enough advantage that a few folks on the fence would shift to his side, and then more would see which way the wind was blowing and they’d follow suit. It’s when you add a third player… a serious one, anyway… to the game that things get complicated enough that it really seems like anyone could win it. No one wants to bow out before there are clear winners or losers. And if a conflict like that drags out, well, instead of players dropping out of it, more and more join in, thinking that if none of the others have managed to win the thing yet, they must be ripe for beating. Something like that took place, near the end of the Great Empire.”
“And then what happened?” Jace asked.
“It fell,” Katryn said.
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