Transcription
Glory to the Empire! No longer will we tolerate the other villains who menace the protagonist like terrorist organizations, lone super villains, or even world destroying monsters. The Empire is an unstoppable military force backed by the evil machinations of a variety of characters. Only the Empire can provide our heroes with a real challenge while still keeping a human element. Plus all of their equipment, armor, and super weapons are like really cool! Evil empires are one of my favorite cliches and is a classic staple of both science fiction and fantasy. Given that empires are used so much as antagonist means only one thing; that the bar is set so low we can't possibly fail! So gather the legions and march forth! For the Empire!
Now when drawing inspiration, we should start and end with Nazis. If one wishes to dig a bit deeper, then it is also acceptable to rip off the Romans as well, but this is less common because it requires an author to open up an actual history book. Just kidding! Reading history is a waste of time! Let's just rip off how Hollywood portrays the Romans. I'm sure they have done their research! Even better, let's combine both into Roman Nazis. That doubles the historical accuracy!
Next we will give our empire powerful unstoppable legions of soldiers whose only weakness is a complete inability to actually hit the main the characters with their weapons. Be sure to mention how feared and respected the empire's troops are and also have the other characters remark on the imperial army's 'precision', but never actually show the imperial forces being competent. We don't want to waste valuable time when we can just have other characters tell us how threatening the Imperial forces are instead. That's just as good!
Now a few readers might actually start to wonder why the empire is wasting valuable military resources hunting down a farm boy who may or may not be the chosen one. These readers are best ignored. Our evil empire doesn't need a reason to burn down a peasant village, inadvertently forcing the main character to begin his hero's journey. Just like our evil empire doesn't need a public relations representative to smooth over all of their atrocities. However, if we are pressed for time we could just have all of the empire's war crimes committed off screen or not even mention them at all. I am sure the audience will root for our one dimensional heroes and not the side with stylish armor, awesome weapons, and who have a catchy military style orchestral theme song.
With the legions on the march one would think that the empire also needs a detailed internal political system. After all, our empire will need its political machinery not only to run its own internal affairs, but also allow it to engage in diplomacy and expand its sphere of influence. Not only does this add realism, but also provides the author a rich array of conflicts and a chance to add a diverse range of antagonists to menace the heroes. One would think that all of this world building and rounded cast of Imperial characters would anchor the reader into the world, but there is one problem. All of this extra depth is completely unneeded. You see, our evil empire doesn't need to have realistic qualities or internal power systems that might explain how the empire came to be in the first place. No. Our evil empire exists because they have an inexplicable endless well of resources to draw from. From a near infinite pool of manpower for their military, to super weapons fueled by either forbidden magic or dark technology, These infinite resources offset the empire's aging, bloated bureaucracy that is inexplicably efficient at hunting down the chosen one, but not at actually succeeding in apprehending them.
Naturally, our empire will be opposed by internal rebels and totally not just because we are ripping off Star Wars. These rebels should fight for freedom from oppression rather than real world rebels who usually represent niche interests like separatists, religious fundamentalists, left or right wing political radicals, or military coups wishing to seize power for themselves. These rebels, despite often being splintered into numerous factions, will set aside their differences and work together no matter how completely incompatible their respective ideologies are. Not that it matters since the empire will slaughter them to the man unless the main characters intervene.
Once our heroes bail out the rebels, they can exploit some of the empire's wide variety of historical weakness that could cause the empire's fall like; the constant grind of civil wars, social unrest due to oppression and corruption, economic instability due to depletion of resources, natural disasters like plagues or famine, rival empires gradually supplanting them, or constant foreign wars of attrition. One of more of these often cause the gradual decline and fall of even the most powerful empires. But fictional empires have only one major weakness: plucky teenagers! Our evil empire will be defeated by the chosen one teenager who will slay the emperor in one on one combat. With the emperor dead, the imperial forces will instantly route and totally not just pick another imperial successor to take the throne. With the empire defeated, freedom will win the day! We should end the story on a high note rather than the grim reality of war crime trials, the monumental task of reforming a former authoritarian government into a more democratic system, civil war between imperial successors, a bloody reign of terror enforced by radical rebel factions The resulting break down in the global power structure leads to an inevitable descent into a long dark age of silence, barbarism, and ignorance. Way to go heroes!