Land of the Shattered Empire: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

A common element of an [[Adventure-Friendly World]] is that the setting is upon the ruins of a now defunct empire. This creates a world without a central authority to solve problems, and several factions willing to wage war (either open or espionage) on one another. It does this while maintaining several conveniences one would spawn such as a common language, and a shared history. It also allows for international institutions, standards and/or road networks (which are often in disrepair and plagued by bandits, [[Disposable Bandits|disposable]] or [[Bandit Mook|otherwise]], who are often dumb enough to [[Mugging the Monster|attack heavily armed and armored men]]). It also provides for ruins and abandoned structures ripe for plunder by dedicated adventurers, and even artifacts of power, the manufacture and use of which have been forgotten.

 

One or more of the factions may [[Vestigial Empire|claim continuity with the old empire]].

 

 

See also [[Balkanize Me]], which may well happen to such an empire if it spanned a large enough collection of peoples and cultures.

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Shin Angyo Onshi]]'': The empire of Jushin was shattered into pieces before the series starts for unclear reasons, though it is heavily implied that Aji Tae, the [[Big Bad]], was responsible. How exactly it happened is subject of one of the flashback arcs, and this shattering is one of the main reasons Munsu is in pretty difficult position to get his revenge over Aji Tae.

* ''[[Drifters]]'': The Orte Empire was a powerful nation expanding its territories into neighboring countries. Though, its leader, {{spoiler|Adolf Hitler}}, committed suicide and is falling apart due to lacking his leadership.

* Played with in ''[[Attack on Titan]]'', The Walls are actually the remnants of Eldia, which was in ancient times used by the Titans to build their empire. However, due to internal conflicts, it collapsed during the Great Titan War. The nation of Marley then rose to global power.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* [[Avatar: The Last Airbender (comic book)|The ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' graphic novels]] show the consequences of this in the first comic arc, ''The Promise''; Zuko is trying to make reparations by relocating Fire Nation citizens from a former Earth Kingdom colony, Yu Dao. He and the Gaang run into problems when the mayor's daughter tries assassinating him under the belief that he is breaking up their culture as she is Fire Nation despite being an Earth Bender. Turns out that a hundred years of colonization creates a lot of moral ambiguity. {{spoiler|Katara eventually suggests that they use Yu Dao as a base for what will become Republic City, as a symbol of goodwill between the Four Nations.}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* The ''[[Ethshar]]'' setting by [[Lawrence Watt Evans]] revolves around a continent full of hundreds of tiny nations, the shattered remains of a much larger empire, Old Ethshar.

* ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' septet and spinoffs feature this, across parallel universes no less. Roland wanders different parts of his homeworld with scattered governments and anarchy to track down the Man in Black and the titular tower. There's even a place where a sentient train is a dictator. In his backstory, he and his friends disrupted a town by shooting most of the men, allowing {{spoiler|the witch to influence an angry mob to burn his [[Love Interest]] Susan at the stake.}}

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Points of Light]]'' is set a hundred years after the fall of the Empire of Nerath. Now the mightiest factions friendly to humanity left are mere city states who struggle to project power beyond their walls and hire mercenaries to deal with all manner of external issue. Nerath has left behind vast ruins filled with treasure and a single language, and is presumably responsible for the [[Global Currency|standardized gold pieces]] as well.

* A [[Divided States of America|breakup of the United States]] creates the conditions for a lot of [[Sky Pirate]]s and squabbling air powers to infest the world of ''[[Crimson Skies]]''.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* The setting of ''[[Fallout]]'' is a post-apocalyptic, retrofuturistic United States that exists long after nuclear weapons ravaged the world. There are still plenty of people left, but they have to contend with dangerous mutants, psychotic raiders, the power-hungry remnants of the United States government, and all kinds of other powerful factions vying for dominance over their slice of post-war America.

* Most of the ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' takes place within the Septim Empire, but by ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' it has ceased to exist due to the events of ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]'' and has been replaced with a weak successor state in the Mede Empire which holds only three of the Septim Empire's ten provinces, with two destroyed, two independent, and three under the control of the antagonistic Aldmeri Dominion. ''Skyrim'' is largely centered around one of the three remaining provinces trying to secede which, if successful, that would leave the remaining two provinces (one its home territory, and the other infamous for its internal instability when the Empire isn't in power) non-contiguous. This results in a very unstable Empire, where many isolated forts have been abandoned to bandits, and its once prosperous national trading company can barely keep the lights on.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[Samurai Jack]]'': Aku may rule over the [[Bad Future]], but dozens of rebels stand up to him, including the Scotsman. They all arrive in the series finale to {{spoiler|rescue Jack.}}

* ''[[Wizards]]'' takes this [[Up To Eleven]]. Despite taking place two-million years in the future, [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|remnants of Nazi Germany still exist]] and are used to inspire the bad guys in the story.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

 

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[[Category:Speculative Fiction]]

[[Category:Otherworld Tropes]]