Imperial Society

The Empire has evolved to have a variation of a caste society with different tiers of citizenship and strong incentives for the citizens to remain in the caste that they were born to. After the birth, each citizen is being granted a tier of citizenship that is equal to their parents. That tier can be upgraded or degraded over the individual’s lifetime.

First Class Citizenship

The First Class Citizen can travel freely around the empire, commit to a sacred union with anyone and choose any occupation they desire. FCC doesn`t either put any restrictions on the amount of offspring a citizen can conceive. This is the most freedom a citizen can have while living under Imperial rule.

Second Class Citizenship

Second Class is most prominent Citizenship in the Imperial colonies. Statistically, 75-90% of colonial citizens are of Second Class. Belonging to this cast gives the citizen a privilege to work and own property. Procreation though is limited where each union of Second Class citizens is allowed to conceive one child. License to have multiple children should be requested from the local Lord and is given only after a high financial or societal merit. The prime Privilege of Second Class Citizens of the empire is being able to apply for First Class citizenship. It may be given if the citizen is choosing to participate in a dangerous job that is needed for the good of the Empire.

Non-Citizens

Not having Citizenship at all puts one in the lowest caste of the Imperial society. These are the foreigners and citizens who got disowned by the Empire for their crimes or betrayal. Non-Citizens can not own any property in the Empire and their offspring if found can be terminated on sight. Plenty of Non-Citizens willingly sterilize themselves and work as slaves for food and shelter in homes of even relatively poor Second Class Citizens. Just like Second Class Citizens, Non-Citizens can earn Citizenship for a significant merit, but there are very few individuals that have managed to do so.

According to unconfirmed rumors, there is a giant City of the Damned under the surface of Zirkon that is inhabited by Non-Citizens. Only there they can live a decent life and have children, but the location of this secret city has never been confirmed by the Imperial authorities.

Downwards Social Lift

Given the uncontrolled reproduction of the First Class citizens, the Empire has developed multiple mechanisms that can downgrade citizenship of an individual:

Citizenship test – it takes place in the end of the school, when the citizen is roughly 15 Limmean years old. It is a week of rigorous mental and physical tests that give the young citizen an average score. Best performing children do either get to behold their First class citizenship, or being granted it if they have clearly outperformed their peers. The amount of top performers that are allowed to be First class citizens is varying each year according to the needs of the Empire. Teenagers that are downgraded to Second class citizens get one week to say goodbyes to their families before deportation from the Capitol.

Unqualified Demotion – if a First class citizen fails to have a steady job for two Limmean years, they are being demoted to the temporary Second class citizenship and deported from the Capitol. They have a chance to be reinstated if they find a suiting career in the Capitol over upcoming five Limmean years.

Last, but not least the citizenship class can be downgraded or even stripped completely as a punishment for a crime. Also, it is important to mention that citizenship classes do not apply to the noble families and their members.

Religion

All sects and religions in the Empire are strictly forbidden. Of course there are plenty of local traditions and faiths that are being précised among the population of Imperial worlds, but they are all mixed and intertwined with the Cult of the Imperial Monarch. Citizens of the empire are conditioned to see the ruling member of the Khan dynasty as an infallible, divine being and praise it at any suitable moment.

Imperial relation to the religion brightly manifests in the strict ban on the teachings of the Children of the Strings. Any willing contact or collaboration with this federal religion is punishable by death according to the decree of the Imperial Monarch themselves.

Culture

While being spread over multiple worlds, the Empire incorporates populations that foster multiple vibrant local cultures. All of them are being suppressed by the centralized cultural narrative that is being created in the Capitol and spread through media and education. Sometimes, the influence go both ways, like when the Empire adopted a local Ekhai festival of colors as an empire-wide Day of Zhia. While living in a strict hierarchical society, imperials in general value honesty, devotion and servitude. The figure of Imperial Monarch serves as a vector for admiration and a reminder of a just social order of the Empire.

The Imperial Will

During the First Era, the Imperial Will was a widespread concept in a strongly hierarchical society of the Empire. The notion behind the Imperial Will is that all power comes down from the Imperial Monarch and spreads through different levels of superiors down to people who execute the work. It means that any Imperial manager or supervisor can use a concept of Imperial Will in order to discipline their employees.

Over the years of usage this concept grew deep in the Imperial culture which leads to sometimes ridiculous examples, like when a cleaning manager is enacting “Imperial Will” on a non-citizen janitor in order to make them work unpaid overtime.

Work and occupation

Imperial media work hard to uphold a narrative that the Empire is a perfect society where each individual is being born with a pre-determined purpose inside their own caste. People who devote themselves to one single craft over the course of their lives are being praised by their peers. It results in a comfortably static population where children often continue the occupation of their parents. Over hundreds of years this trend have created precedents where over five thousands of workers from one Zirkonian shipyard happened to belong only to three interconnected families. There are few social lifts in the Empire, but individuals who try to use them are being frowned upon. Unless the person is being backed by state media as an exceptional imperial citizen that is being obliged to ascend between casts in order to play a bigger part in the shining monolith of the Empire.

Fashion and Customs

There is an interesting trend in the imperial society that can be described as High-Low, Middle. It manifests in a pattern that the Highest and lowest classes share plenty of similar behavioral traits, while the middle class of citizens looks and behaves completely different.

For example, it`s only the Imperial Monarch, few prominent personalities and the whole non-citizen caste that can allow themselves to dress in colorful clothes outside the rare festivities.

Middle class of First- and Second class citizens live according to a completely different code of conduct: Industrial workers dress mostly in calm pastel colors, favoring tints that represent their industry. Servants of the imperial bureaucracy prefer to dress in white, black and all shades of gray. This high conformity is being enforced by peers and praised as a sign of devotion to the Empire. Some highly positioned bureaucrats do even choose to shave their heads clean in order to mimic the baldness of the Imperial Monarch of old.

Sexuality

There is no sex- or gender based discrimination written in imperial laws. Any citizen can commit to life partnership (merry) with any other adult person withing the same class. Non-citizens though have no means to legalese their marital status.

Homosexuality is seen as a part of the norm in the imperial society in general. The only exception being families from lower First- and Second Class of citizenship. Low tolerance towards same-sex relations is being caused by both legal and cultural factors:

• Second Class Citizens are not allowed to have more then one child. So, each child is being precepted as a keeper of the family bloodline by them.
• First class citizens are allowed to reproduce beyond control but they are also concerned with strengthening the bloodline. Given that First Citizens are always suffering under threat of losing their class together with occupation, they tend to have as many kids as possible in order for at least some of them to keep parents’ status while others are destined to fall down to become Second Class Citizens.

Sources

Imperial Informatorium