| By Batmenace15 | Part of the Empire of the Avatar continuity. |
The Union of Imperial Earth States, or more commonly known as the Earth Empire, is the successor state to the Earth Kingdom and one of the world's Four nations. A massive empire spawning the entire eastern continent and several islands, it is the largest and most populated sovereign nation on the planet, and one of two superpowers in the world alongside it's rival, the United Republic of Nations. Depending on who you ask, it is the most powerful nation on earth, with the largest standing military, second largest navy, largest stockpile of Spirit Bombs, and a leading figure in the early space race between the United Republic and Fire Nation.
After the assassination of Earth Queen Hou-Ting and subsequent Anarchy in the Earth Kingdom, the nation was reunited thanks to the efforts of Kuvira and her military, bringing stability to the continent after three years. Instead of handing over power to Prince Wu and reinstating the monarchy, Kuvira refused to let the nation fall back into its archaic, regressive ways and instead declared the creation of a new Earth Empire. Immediately following this declaration, she planned and executed an annexation of the city state Zaofu and began an invasion of the United Republic, which she and many others saw as land rightfully belonging to the Earth Empire. When her secret weapon, a massive mecha suit armed with a spirit cannon called the Colossus, was destroyed,Avatar Korra was killed saving the life of Kuvira from her own weapon. With her secret weapon destroyed and the Avatar dead, the two nations reached an impasse and Kuvira called off her army, signing an armistice with President Raiko and ending hostilities.
Eighteen years later, the Earth Empire has become a modernized superpower under the unquestioned leadership of Kuvira, who still remains the dictator of the nation. Many parts of the Empire had received extensive industrialization and education programs meant to raise the standard of living across the entire continent, as well as support the massive military in its arms race against the United Republic. It is currently engaged in a tense cold war with the United Republic, both nations having a massive stockpile of spirit weapons that could destroy the entire planet if unleashed to their full power. They have instead engaged in a decades long series of spying on each other and supporting proxy wars to undermine the other's influence on the global scale, the longest lasting and most infamous of which being the rebellion in the Foggy Swamp.
History[]
The Old Kingdom[]
Main article: Earth Kingdom
Early Imperial Period[]
The early years of Kuvira's reign as absolute dictator of the Empire were tumultuous but productive. The defeat at Republic City had begun to cast doubt on how well Kuvira could lead the nation. As a result, Kuvira began a massive propaganda campaign to subtly change the narrative of the Battle and Armistice, saying that they were given a glorious fight and an honorable defeat by the Avatar and not the pitiful United Forces. Due to the heroic sacrifice of Korra, Kuvira also began to instill a deep respect for Avatars in propaganda such as Korra, Aang, and especially Kyoshi, whom had been slowly appropriated into a nationalist symbol. She also began her long-awaited modernization program to the entire Empire, and promised that in a few short years the standard of living for the citizens of the nation would eclipse that of the United Republic.
The first and by far most ambitious project the Earth Empire launched was the complete rebuilding of Ba Sing Se into a modern city free of the sharp socioeconomic divisions it faced before the death of the Earth Queen. What was once the lower ring had been almost completely destroyed in the fires and riots following the fall of the government, so it was easily paved over and rebuilt with massive, monolithic apartments meant to house almost half of the city's entire population. The middle ring was kept mostly intact aside from a few additional buildings, and the upper ring was almost completely rebuilt to be the central business district and governmental headquarters for the Empire. Upon completion, the city was renamed Ba Zhu Se, the Eternal Metal City. The factories created for the new capital provided the resources and machinery to build the industry and infrastructure throughout the entire Empire, including the Imperial Highway project to make travel throughout the nation even easier.
Unbeknownst to the majority of the public, many of the public works projects were being done by slave labor comprised of Kuvira's political enemies and people who were not of Earth Empire nationality. Almost half of all the mining, factory, and construction jobs was done by prisoners, yet the public largely turned a blind eye to this as long as they received the higher standard of living they were promised. She also included widespread literacy and education programs for the undeveloped regions of the Empire, providing a better education for the former peasants. However, there was an ulterior motive behind this program, to reteach the old Earth Kingdom as a mismanaged failed state and build up Kuvira as the savior of the nation. If any old conservative leader in the provinces spoke out against this blatant rewriting of history and disregard of their long standing traditions, they were discreetly removed from office and disappeared to far off reeducation facilities. Some of the imprisoned officials even included the former Governor of Yi.
After years of the new education and propaganda techniques, the youth of the Earth Empire began to actively shun and hate the old Earth Kingdom and everything it stood for. Teenagers and young adults gathered books and scrolls containing the traditions and history of the Earth Kingdom's various cultures and practices and burned them in massive celebratory pyres at political rallies. Within five years, Kuvira had instilled a new nationalist ideology for the youth to adopt, the Children of Earth. Under it, there was to be no more disparate cultures worshiping the spirits or ancestors long past, but rather a new singular identity taking the progressive views of the Metal Clan and putting a militaristic and violent disregard for spirits and other nations. The Children were born of the Earth, bend the earth and the metal within it, and keep themselves rooted within it, all as one under the guidance of the Great Uniter.
The Swamp War[]
TBA
Trivia[]
- Various real life countries and regimes were drawn as inspiration for the Earth Empire, including Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, and Nationalist China.
- The modernization and rapid economic programs the Earth Empire instilled were inspired by the Five Year Plans of the Stalinist Soviet Union and the Great Leap Forward in Maoist China. Another inspiration were the ambitious and unrealized infrastructure projects of Nazi Germany, especially Germania, Hitler's planned rebuilding of Berlin after winning World War II, as well as finished projects such as the Autobahn and Volkswagen.
- The idea behind the Children of Earth ideology came from the fact that the Earth Kingdom was already the least spiritual of the four nations and had so many conflicting views of spirituality within its own borders, so it took to the more generally collectivist nature of Eastern cultures and mixed it with its own unique connection to the earth and resources and life it provides.
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