In Tico3, there was a brief mention of Maximilian Nicodemus, the first World Council Chairman. In the (probably) mythological history of the New Earth Empire, the Lost Years (known as the Blackout in the Union era) were a time of global war, a devastating pandemic, famine, economic collapse, etc. During this time, the fractious nations of the world were united under the rule of Emperor Maximilian I. However, once his reign was secure, the Emperor chose to test humanity. Renouncing his crown, the Emperor restyled himself Maximilian Nicodemus, Chairman of the World Council of the newly established Earth Union. If humanity could remain united, there would be no further need of an Emperor. If not, a new Emperor would rise to bring humanity together again.

The post-Union era was brought to an end with the foundation of the New Earth Empire under Emperor Maximilian II Nicodemus, who claimed to be the direct descendant of Maximilian Nicodemus. Critical historians give no credence to the story of the First Emperor and consider it to be nothing more than a convenient fiction to give the Empire a claim to a longer lineage than what it truly possessed. Questioning the official history eventually became a prosecutable offense, so any critics who wanted to avoid a lengthy stay in prison published their work outside Imperial territory.

The Nicodeman Dynasty reigned only briefly. The order of succession wasn’t firmly established and it mostly fell to which of the eligible princes had the strongest faction of supporting nobles. For instance, after the death of Emperor Alexander I, it was the Emperor’s brother Philip rather than his son Alexander. This resulted in the first major line of pretenders, the Xue Line (named after the family of Prince Alexander’s mother). The powerful Sun Faction formed around these pretenders, but they could not stand directly against the ruling coalition. The Nicodeman Dynasty ended with the childless Emperor Alexander II and a new split was formed between the lines of the two daughters Emperor Maximilian II. From the elder daughter Princess Olympia came the new Augustan Dynasty, while the younger daughter Princess Athena’s grandson styled himself Alexander III of the so-called “True Nicodeman” Dynasty, though they had so little support that the Augustans never even bothered to actively hunt them down.

Now, it’s no great spoiler to say that the Empire suffers a bit of a bad turn at the end of the Aether War. The warrior-statesman Emperor John Charles was lost and his foppish playboy of a son John Frederick took the throne instead and was forced to negotiation a rather ignominious end to the war. The Emperor was then driven to abdicate, after which he fell into the hands of the ever-patient Sun Faction. At this point, there were four branches vying for the throne. Besides the previous Xue and “True Nicodeman” Lines, there was the Santana Line descended from Princess Olympia’s daughter Andrea and Lord Juan Felipe Santana and the Andropov Line of the deposed Emperor’s father-in-law Lord Ivan Andropov. Surprisingly, none of these claimants won the throne in the end. Rather, the Augustan Dynasty was restored with the great-nephew of Emperor John Charles being crowned Charles III. This was all thanks to the shrewd machinations of Lord Neander Cruz, who soon married the Emperor’s sister and claimed the throne for himself. (Whether he was in fact responsible for the death of the young Emperor is an open question.) So began the Neandrian Dynasty.

Before he even rose to the throne, Emperor Alexis III (the regnal name of Lord Neander) had engineered the extinction of both the “True Nicodeman” and the Santana Lines, though the Xue and Andropov Lines were not so easily terminated. After Emperor Alexis’ death, the Neandrian Dynasty was dominated by the Empress Dowager Victoria Augusta, whose influence did not wane until well into the reign of her grandson, Emperor Carolus IV. The dynasty did not outlive Emperor Carolus, though, and after his assassination, it was the Andropov Line that claimed the throne. The Andropov Dynasty managed to defeat the Sun Faction, fulfilling a long-held blood feud, and the Xue Line went extinct, bringing an end to the last of the pretenders. The Andropovs were unstable, though. At its worst, there were three emperors in a span of four years. With the assassination of Emperor Ivan V, yet another dynasty rose, the Neologos Dynasty, descended from the Emperor Victor Alexis I Neander. It was by this point that life extension technology was much improved and Emperor Michael I Neologos reigned for over 70 years. And this is as far as the history needs to go at present.

This was a very broad gloss of Imperial history, but it gives you some idea of all the twists and turns I’ve been plotting out recently. Maybe I’ll explore more details of the culture next time. Stay tuned.

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