The War Chief looked out at the scattered warriors opposing his army. They numbered maybe forty, maybe fifty. His own forces numbered three hundred and seventy five, not considering his lieutenants. His opponents wore no armor. Some carried leather shields. Most carried hunting spears or hand axes. His own forces carried long spears and bronze shields with short bladed sword as back up of the shield wall broke.
The War Chief examined the enemy a second time. The shield wall would not break. He pointed at his herald, who nodded and raised three signal flags in turn. The army formed into a long thin shield wall and began to march towards to scatter opponents.
“This will be a slaughter, sir.” The Dragon Lord said from his horse to the War Chief’s left.
“Of course it will. They are used to battling for honor. They are used to skirmishes designed to confirm territorial borders. They have never experienced true war. We will teach them the truth.”
“Yes sir.”
“They will never bow to you!”
The War Chief turned to his right and looked down at the bound and tied enemy scout, “Then they will die. We gave them a fair choice: feast with us and starve tomorrow, or fight against us and die today. They have made their choice. You have made your choice. Now watch, and learn the difference between you savages and our empire.”
“You were one of us! Why did you become this? What happened to you?”
The War Chief snorted, “I learned the truth. I learned that humans were different, special amongst the peoples. We are not mere beasts upon the land. We rule this land. And if you wish to live as an animal. We treat you as animals.”
Before them the enemies fell back before the advancing wall of spears and shields, they broke and ran before the might of the army. The War Chief smiled, “You run now, but there is nowhere to which you can run. We will chase you until there is nowhere that is not Empire, nowhere you animals can hide.”
The scout wept.
An Introduction to Empire
Many empires have risen and fallen throughout written history. The term Hungry Empire refers to all and none of the those empires, and also refers to other groups and nations which never used the term empire. The concept of the Hungry Empire derives from Daniel Quinn and his idea of Taker and Leaver cultures. In his novel “Ishmael” Quinn says that human culture split due to disagreement of a single idea. Using the term ‘take it or leave it,’ Quinn suggested that one group took the idea and the other group left the idea. And thus he called them Takers and Leavers. We call these groups, The Hungry Empire and the Free Path.
The split Quinn refers to is the process called the agricultural revolution and rise of the first states in the Fertile Crescent, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze River Valley. These nascent states spread outward: across what is now China and east Asia, across the India subcontinent, and north and west across the Middle East and Europe. If you have read about the agricultural revolution, it was probably in elementary school. And as such, you probably have the sense that the agricultural revolution was peaceful.
It was not. Some groups surely adopted the ideas willingly. But as James C. Scott observes in his books: The Art of Not Being Governed and Against the Grain, most peoples resisted the expansion of the agricultural revolution. And this makes sense. The reason the agricultural revolution spread was because the form of agricultural practiced generated food surplus which led to over population, necessitating expansion to house the excess population. Further, the agriculture practiced depleted the soil and caused frequent famines and droughts, which meant the agriculturalists needed new land to farm while the old land recovered. The Hungry Empire exists because the mechanics of their food production force them to expand into new land.
The Hungry Empire is not a single entity obviously. It is the ideology that arose from the practice of this particular form of agriculture. The Hungry Empire believes that they the only true people, the only ones living appropriately for humans. The Hungry Empire believes that alone know how to properly use the world efficiently and in the way humans were meant to use. They believe that they have the right to force all other humans into line and that they have the right to confiscate land used in a manner they consider inefficient.
“The premise of the Taker story is ‘the world belongs to man’. … The premise of the Leaver story is ‘man belongs to the world’… …We’re not destroying the world because we’re clumsy. We’re destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate way, at war with it.”
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
Versions of the Hungry Empire rise when a new warlord finds a novel way of expanding that other incarnations of the Empire cannot defend against, and fall as the Empire’s ability to expand is eventually curtailed. The Empire only survives so long as it is expanding. Once it ceases to expand, the Locust like nature of its own tactics devours it. And the Hungry Empire has now expanded to encompass the whole of the globe. This is why we are looking to Mars. The Hungry Empire must expand or die.
Origins and Questions
How did the Hungry Empire arise? The Hungry Empire arose when The Locust King raised an army and began to wage war in a way never before seen by the Free Tribes, overrunning and destroying tribes un a manner unseen for generations.
How did the Locust King raise such an army? The Locust King chained the Broken; first the Devourer, then the Harvester and Contagion, then the Messiah, then Falsenight, and then Starheart and Ashdawn. The Locust King did this using the power of the Grey Locust.
How did the Locust King gain the power of the Grey Locust? The youngest of the Seven Siblings made a deal with a Locust Spirit and the Elder known as the Grey. And in so doing, the Grey bonded with the Locust Spirit and allied itself with the young warrior and transformed him into the First Locust King.
Why did one of the Seven Siblings ally with the Grey? The sibling known as Lion acts as the vanguard to the tribe, seeking out new insights and pushing boundaries. In so doing, Lion encountered and befriended the Locust Spirit. And during their adventures they encountered something that they could not overcome on their own. They faced annihilation, and in desperation they called out to the Grey for assistance. Many scholars believe that they actually encountered the Grey and that they made a deal with the things that was killing them. But this is uncertain.
What happened when they transformed? The transformation resulted in the creation of the Locust King, and his first action as Locust King was to murder his elder sister: The Corn Lady. From the murder of Corn Lady, the Locust King was able to gain the power to bind the first of the Broken: The Devourer. And so began the Ten Thousand Darkness. So began the Age of Eternal Summer.
- The Ideology of The Cancer Cell: Growth without End
- The Ideology of The One True Church: Doctrinal Exclusivity, Their Way or the Highway
- The ideology of The Cannon Fodder: Resources are Valuable, Humans are Expendable
Recommended Reading
- Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
- Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King
- King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown
Professor Harbinger's School for Villains 