Mark726's EVE Lore Survival Guide: The Amarr Empire

Welcome back to Part Two of “EVE Lore for Rookies”. Last time around, we looked at some of the deeper history of New Eden, dating back to the discovery of New Eden itself. Today, we’re going to be looking at something a little nearer and dearer to all of our RPing hearts: the history of the modern day empires and their current statuses. This is by no means intended to give you the full breadth of information on each of the empires. It won’t make you qualified to be a talking head on a news program (you know, if there were qualifications for that kind of thing), but it should be enough to point you in the right direction and at least make for some witty and charming dinnertime conversation. We’ll be covering the four empires in separate sections before turning our attentions to those lovable scamps in CONCORD.

The Amarr Empire: God Has a Plan

The Amarr Empire is the largest of the four main nations (collectively known as the Empires) of New Eden. The Empire is a bureaucratic morass that is also a theocratic state. Headed by Empress Jamyl Sarum, the Empire sees itself as the shining beacon of morality, ready to spread the gift of God’s love to the rest of New Eden. To that effect, they have at various times throughout their history attempted so-called “Reclaimings”, where they attempt to convert the godless heathens to their religion in an attempt to save their souls. Of course, this is mostly to the other cultures’ detriment, since according to the Amarrian religion, only the True Amarr (those of the True Amarr bloodline, and descendants of the first Amarr) can truly be saved. All other people must subject themselves to the whims of the True Amarr and spend their days in servitude to God’s Chosen People. Those that don’t willingly convert are at times forced into slavery, which under the Amarr religion is perfectly acceptable. Indeed, the Amarr are renowned for their slave control technology.

History

The Amarr Empire originally started as a split off Catholic sect back on Earth. They eventually made their way through the EVE Gate and settled on a planet called Athra. Don’t recognize the name? Well, the sect settled themselves on a continent on Athra called Amarr (spoiler alert: the Amarr like to name things after themselves). Sometime near the end of the Dark Ages, the year 20,000 or so, the Amarr encountered another race on their planet, and it is this first contact that catalyzes the first Reclaiming. Great religious fervor swept through the True Amarr as they race to conquer the infidels. It takes them about 12,000 years since the collapse of the EVE Gate to conquer the entirety of Athra, renaming the planet and the star system Amarr. An Emperor, who is seen as the embodiment of God among the humans, is crowned under the royal seal. From here on in, much of Amarr political history (until the present day, which we’ll return to in a bit) amounts to a back and forth of who has ultimate power: the Emperor or his Apostles (his privy council before there was a privy council), as well as how large a role religion will play in public life. Reclaimings come and go as new races are encountered and the Empire resolves to convert them. The details are out there, for anyone interested, but it’s a bit much to get into here.

Of more use to us, however, is the fact that the Amarr were the first to return to space. This seems odd, at first, but given the Amarr’s appetite for spreading their religion, their fervor to discover means of interstellar travel makes sense. It also helps that they, fairly early on, discovered the remains of jump gates left over from the first round of New Eden’s colonization. From the ruins of their nearly pristinely preserved stargate, they were quickly able to reverse engineer the gate’s function (we’ll be reviewing that in part four). This began their slow but steady expansion from Amarr to, eventually, it’s current borders. The Amarr prided themselves on their slow, deliberate expansion into the stars.

The Amarr are perhaps best known for their subjugation of the Minmatar. First encountering each other in 22355, contact was disastrous (for the Minmatar) from the start. For the next 125 years, the Amarr systematically raided Matari systems for slaves. This escalates in 22480 when the Amarr finally discover Pator. In the so-called Day of Darkness, the Amarr rolled through the Matari homeworlds, devastating entire tribal populations. From that point on, Matari worlds were considered part of the Empire.

At this point, the Amarr were feeling quite confident in their abilities (even moreso than usual). These feelings would not be changed until shortly after first contact of the Amarr with the Jove. The Jove proclaimed themselves vastly superior in technology, yet the Emperor decided to attempt a Reclaiming of the Jove regardless (Templar One suggests some internal political strife to be at the heart of this somewhat odd decision). The Amarr-Jove war begins and ends in 23216. The only real battle, the Battle of Vak’Atioth, saw the Amarr unceremoniously crushed in an incredibly one-sided battle. Sensing weakness after the battle, the Minmatar chose at that time to begin their own revolt against the Amarr. After much fighting, and the support of the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar managed to establish their own Republic, reconquering most of their original space.

Social Structure

As noted, Amarr government centers around the Empress. She is the ruler of all things, both spiritual and temporal. Amarr emperors are implanted with cybernetic technology to keep them alive as long as possible. The last long-lasting emperor, Heideran VII, lived for about 300 years, though his successor was nowhere near as lucky.

The Empire actually has a fairly feudal structure to it. Below the Emperor are the five Heirs who, along with others, sit on the Emperor’s Privy Council. When an emperor finally dies, an heir is chosen from amongst the five Great Houses: the Sarums, the Kor-Azors, the Ardishapurs, the Tash-Murkons, and the Kadors. Each house sponsors one Heir, the leaders of the Houses, in the Succession Trials, a series of competitions that determine who has God’s favor. The winner assumes the throne: the other heirs must kill themselves, allowing the next in their houses to become the new Heirs (and conveniently wipes out the people most likely to attempt to usurp the Throne). Under the Heirs (all of whom rule over various parts of the Empire), specific planets or plots of land are owned by Holders, the local lords. Under them are the various common people and, of course, the slaves.

The Succession Trials were thrown into question with Jamyl Sarum. Although she lost the Trials and theoretically committed suicide, she was found resurrected in YC 110 during the Elder Fleet crisis (see the section on the Minmatar). She had apparently planned to be resurrected from the start. She swept through and saved the Empire from the Elder Fleet’s wrath with a Terran superweapon of enormous power. After that victory, she was proclaimed the new Empress. However, some sources (most notably, Templar One) suggest that all is not as it seems; Jamyl has often been observed to be fighting some kind of internal demon, which first appeared after her resurrection. Feelings on Sarum are mixed overall: she has in some cases shown great religious fervor, but some have questioned her decision to emancipate a significant fraction of Minmatar slaves.

Roleplaying Tips

Before I dig in to a few tips for RPing the Amarr, I just want to mention something for the aspiring RPers out there. In these sections, I’ll be mentioning some broad guidelines that MOST RPers try to adhere to in playing their characters in a respective background. But that being said, just as in real life, you can find all kinds of people in the Empires. Just because I might say that the Amarr are super religious, doesn’t mean they ALL are. Feel free to go against the grain or go with it, I’m just trying to offer some hints if you’re interested.

Those of you looking to RP an Amarr character should find it pretty easy. Broadly, there’s two categories of Amarr characters: those who honestly believe in the Amarr religion and will work to Reclaim other people, and those who really don’t believe in the religion but pretend to for greater personal gain (there is some suggestion in Templar One that even Empress Jamyl falls into this latter category). Regardless of personal motivations, Amarrians (Amarr? There’s no clear distinction in the literature either way) are generally seen as haughty and, as could be expected, rather holier-than-thou. True Amarr suffer the most from this type of condition, of course, since they are God’s Chosen People. What little is known about the Ni-Kunni suggests that they have long been absorbed by the Empire and accept their place, even if it is near the low rungs of the Empire’s society. The Khanid are a bit unique in that some of the race has split off with its own separate pseudo-kingdom, having seceded in 22762 AD after a botched imperial secession (looked briefly at in Part 3). The Kingdom shouldn't be confused with the bloodline, however, and there is still a significant showing of the bloodline in the formal Empire. In general, the RP crowd tends to split amongst Royal Houses rather than formal bloodlines, though I wanted to give some background on the bloodlines regardless. There are varying degrees of how dedicated to the faith a person is, how much they accept Jamyl’s rule, and how much sympathy they feel for slaves and former slaves. That said, Amarr also tend to be friendly towards the Caldari (apparently in an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” type approach), solidified by economic ties.

PREVIOUS: An Introduction
NEXT: The Minmatar Republic