It’s all very calculated, the way that Emet-Selch builds the Garlean Empire.
He’s played this game before, setting up an empire that is overwhelmingly powerful, with the fire of conquest in their hearts and greed in their eyes as they look out over all the world--and even beyond, up to the moon and stars--and determine that it shall be theirs. Plenty of Allagan technology is still operating today, literally thousands of years later, which speaks more for that society’s strength than any amount of hollow boasting ever could. And yet, while in some ways it could be said that ancient Allag had been Emet-Selch’s magnum opus, he had yet been dissatisfied with it in certain ways. There are certain things that he is most certainly going to do differently this time, as he creates the Garlean Empire.
Placing himself in a leadership role, for one, rather than being the puppeteer skulking in the shadows--what great fun that promises to be, taking a far more active role for once. In part, he is curious--it has been so long since he dwelt in a vessel of flesh, and though he still scorns these imperfect shades of the magnificent beings who came before, his people, he is willing to give them a fair trial. He will live among them, break bread with them, marry, sire children, and set up another glorious empire. He will stir the embers among this displaced and bitterly downtrodden people, fanning them into a furious blaze that will engulf the world...and as he is the one laying the foundations, he can and will ensure that it is built to his exacting specifications.
It’s all very calculated, and designed to fail.
One such pivotal point will be their pride. How laughable it is, that these magickless echoes of true people should think themselves somehow better, superior to all the rest of the equally-sundered, identically-incomplete beings who now populate the Source and its reflections. He cares for them not a whit more than he cares for any of these lives--they are so fleeting, so imperfect, that Emet does not even consider them to be truly alive. Their worth is no more or less to him than that of the insects populating an anthill. And yet, that misplaced sense of pride and deeply-ingrained vainglory is easy to instill in the breasts of men who have been persecuted for their very existence. They were always afraid of you, always jealous of your true, overwhelming potential. You are destined for something more. You are stronger for having been forged and tempered in the fires of their hate. You will rule over them, as is your right, and grind them down beneath your iron-shod heel, a just recompense for the scorn they once showed you.
Another equally important point is the line of succession. For all that they are equal in strength of will and intellect, on the whole men have always had more warlike hearts than women, the desire to seize power and maintain that chokehold, the hunger to be in control and not only know it, but feel it. Again, perhaps it all traces back to pride, and how weak the hearts of men truly can be, how uncertain and wavering, in need of constant praise and reassurance.
Women, in Emet’s experience, tend to be far less proud and far more purposeful. And as he thinks of Venat--as he thinks of Azem--he tells himself no, no chances. He will not, cannot take the risk that one of her shards might be reborn only to take control of his empire and ruin everything. It’s precisely the sort of thing she would do, exactly the sort of controlled chaos she embodied, and it gives him a headache just thinking about the very possibility. Thus, his decision regarding the laws of inheritance: female heirs shall have no claim upon the throne. Being less of a mind for war and tactics, they shall be granted power only equal to that which they prove themselves capable of wielding; and their primary importance will be to ensure the line of succession continues unbroken, theirs the critical duty of guaranteeing that the bloodline of the true rulers runs strong, straight, and true.
Venat would mock him for such a thing, Emet knows, but there is some dark part of him that is deeply satisfied with this petty sort of revenge. That woman, that wretched Light, split the world and everything in it; if he causes her children, these pitiful beings who are scarcely even living to begin with, suffering and pain, he knows that she will feel it. The peoples of the nations oppressed by this internally and intentionally frail juggernaut of a civilization that he’s built will call on their various gods, and the strain will tell on Hydaelyn, sapping her of strength little by little, every summoning a bloodletting, a death (or perhaps doom) by inches.
...He doesn’t want to think about what she would say, were she here to see him drafting the laws of the Garlean Empire. Azem always did have quite a lot to say, often acting with her heart rather than her head and speaking the same way. Not to say that she wasn’t intelligent or capable of planning; she was simply a woman of action, inclined to leap before she looked so long as she believed the potential reward to be worth the risk. She trusted in her own overwhelming strength, and perhaps trusted even more in the strength of others, those she called friends-
No, Emet-Selch--or Solus, rather--tells himself decisively. It matters not what she might have thought. Should he and the other Ascians achieve their ends, should they manage to bring about all the necessary rejoinings, then...perhaps then, her soul might be made whole again. Whatever she might think of him then, however deeply she might loathe the actions he’s taken and the stains on his hands and soul...if it brings her back, he will count it worth every moment of the thousands of years of loneliness and suffering he’s endured. Even if she will never look at him the same way, will never trust him and call out to him again, warm and bright and playfully teasing; even if she will never be his, so long as she exists, he will be satisfied. Perhaps then his duty will be done, and he will simply return to the star, rather than ruin the idyllic memories of all the times spent together with his two dearest friends. Surely the two of them could manage to get along well enough without him. Surely they would understand how very weary he was, how much he longed for a rest, an ending.
And so as he looks over the laws he’s drafted for his latest machination of a country, Emet-Selch does not waver as he signs off on it, in that instant turning it from simple ink on a page into a way of life, a dogma, an entire nation’s creed. A seemingly-strong but intentionally flawed and fragile framework, one destined to come cascading down in a rush of blood and fire, as had the Allagan Empire of eld. These Garleans are but a pale imitation of that great empire, as washed out and faded in comparison as Ancient Allag was compared to that of his true people, the ancients; but weak and disgusting as their bodies may be, they will serve his ends, and to Emet-Selch, that is all that matters.
Prompt #28: Vainglory | ✧ Emet-Selch (Hades) i.e. "Solus zos Galvus" ✧ | All Spoilers, All The T
He’s played this game before, setting up an empire that is overwhelmingly powerful, with the fire of conquest in their hearts and greed in their eyes as they look out over all the world--and even beyond, up to the moon and stars--and determine that it shall be theirs. Plenty of Allagan technology is still operating today, literally thousands of years later, which speaks more for that society’s strength than any amount of hollow boasting ever could. And yet, while in some ways it could be said that ancient Allag had been Emet-Selch’s magnum opus, he had yet been dissatisfied with it in certain ways. There are certain things that he is most certainly going to do differently this time, as he creates the Garlean Empire.
Placing himself in a leadership role, for one, rather than being the puppeteer skulking in the shadows--what great fun that promises to be, taking a far more active role for once. In part, he is curious--it has been so long since he dwelt in a vessel of flesh, and though he still scorns these imperfect shades of the magnificent beings who came before, his people, he is willing to give them a fair trial. He will live among them, break bread with them, marry, sire children, and set up another glorious empire. He will stir the embers among this displaced and bitterly downtrodden people, fanning them into a furious blaze that will engulf the world...and as he is the one laying the foundations, he can and will ensure that it is built to his exacting specifications.
It’s all very calculated, and designed to fail.
One such pivotal point will be their pride. How laughable it is, that these magickless echoes of true people should think themselves somehow better, superior to all the rest of the equally-sundered, identically-incomplete beings who now populate the Source and its reflections. He cares for them not a whit more than he cares for any of these lives--they are so fleeting, so imperfect, that Emet does not even consider them to be truly alive. Their worth is no more or less to him than that of the insects populating an anthill. And yet, that misplaced sense of pride and deeply-ingrained vainglory is easy to instill in the breasts of men who have been persecuted for their very existence. They were always afraid of you, always jealous of your true, overwhelming potential. You are destined for something more. You are stronger for having been forged and tempered in the fires of their hate. You will rule over them, as is your right, and grind them down beneath your iron-shod heel, a just recompense for the scorn they once showed you.
Another equally important point is the line of succession. For all that they are equal in strength of will and intellect, on the whole men have always had more warlike hearts than women, the desire to seize power and maintain that chokehold, the hunger to be in control and not only know it, but feel it. Again, perhaps it all traces back to pride, and how weak the hearts of men truly can be, how uncertain and wavering, in need of constant praise and reassurance.
Women, in Emet’s experience, tend to be far less proud and far more purposeful. And as he thinks of Venat--as he thinks of Azem--he tells himself no, no chances. He will not, cannot take the risk that one of her shards might be reborn only to take control of his empire and ruin everything. It’s precisely the sort of thing she would do, exactly the sort of controlled chaos she embodied, and it gives him a headache just thinking about the very possibility. Thus, his decision regarding the laws of inheritance: female heirs shall have no claim upon the throne. Being less of a mind for war and tactics, they shall be granted power only equal to that which they prove themselves capable of wielding; and their primary importance will be to ensure the line of succession continues unbroken, theirs the critical duty of guaranteeing that the bloodline of the true rulers runs strong, straight, and true.
Venat would mock him for such a thing, Emet knows, but there is some dark part of him that is deeply satisfied with this petty sort of revenge. That woman, that wretched Light, split the world and everything in it; if he causes her children, these pitiful beings who are scarcely even living to begin with, suffering and pain, he knows that she will feel it. The peoples of the nations oppressed by this internally and intentionally frail juggernaut of a civilization that he’s built will call on their various gods, and the strain will tell on Hydaelyn, sapping her of strength little by little, every summoning a bloodletting, a death (or perhaps doom) by inches.
...He doesn’t want to think about what she would say, were she here to see him drafting the laws of the Garlean Empire. Azem always did have quite a lot to say, often acting with her heart rather than her head and speaking the same way. Not to say that she wasn’t intelligent or capable of planning; she was simply a woman of action, inclined to leap before she looked so long as she believed the potential reward to be worth the risk. She trusted in her own overwhelming strength, and perhaps trusted even more in the strength of others, those she called friends-
No, Emet-Selch--or Solus, rather--tells himself decisively. It matters not what she might have thought. Should he and the other Ascians achieve their ends, should they manage to bring about all the necessary rejoinings, then...perhaps then, her soul might be made whole again. Whatever she might think of him then, however deeply she might loathe the actions he’s taken and the stains on his hands and soul...if it brings her back, he will count it worth every moment of the thousands of years of loneliness and suffering he’s endured. Even if she will never look at him the same way, will never trust him and call out to him again, warm and bright and playfully teasing; even if she will never be his, so long as she exists, he will be satisfied. Perhaps then his duty will be done, and he will simply return to the star, rather than ruin the idyllic memories of all the times spent together with his two dearest friends. Surely the two of them could manage to get along well enough without him. Surely they would understand how very weary he was, how much he longed for a rest, an ending.
And so as he looks over the laws he’s drafted for his latest machination of a country, Emet-Selch does not waver as he signs off on it, in that instant turning it from simple ink on a page into a way of life, a dogma, an entire nation’s creed. A seemingly-strong but intentionally flawed and fragile framework, one destined to come cascading down in a rush of blood and fire, as had the Allagan Empire of eld. These Garleans are but a pale imitation of that great empire, as washed out and faded in comparison as Ancient Allag was compared to that of his true people, the ancients; but weak and disgusting as their bodies may be, they will serve his ends, and to Emet-Selch, that is all that matters.