Colonies of receding empires?

[Dienekes]

What tech level? That’s kinda important.

Usually, either the empire pulls the means of controlling the territory out directly (usually the army and/or military governors) or stops funding said means of control.

We’ll look at the times when the forces are pulled out first. The effects of this can vary depending on the situation. The loss of the imperial control creates a power vacuum and politics is like nature in that it abhors a vacuum. You’ll find different bodies pop up to take the reins of leadership. Some colonies will have their old forms of government still in place and will step up to regain control of the territory. Essentially the rise of the previous government before the empire. This can occasionally be quite beneficial to the colony. Especially if the empire was pulling resources directly from said colony and not offering anything really useful in return. While violence is almost universal between states. It is possible for a state to grow large enough to defend itself from all rival and be secure in its borders until a huge empire comes around and conquers them. In this situation the empire leaving is often pretty nice.

That said not every colony still has secure borders and a legitimate governing body to step up when the empire leaves. In this scenario the empire was performing the role of guardian and law. With them gone you’ll see a struggle for dominance. Outside forces will sense weakness and attack. Within the territory different forces will struggle to achieve dominance. Without getting too much into specifics because the board’s rules, depending on culture religious leaders and bureaucrats can come into dominance as a way of trying to form cultural ties and unity. But much much more likely you’re going to see the rise of warlords and kings either home grown or invading.

Power becomes based on who can keep the most territory safe. This will be done by those who either have money to buy mercenaries or are strong and charismatic enough to fight and lead men. Different plots of territory with the best natural resources become hugely important key points of conflict as the trade that the empire established has probably plummeted so each territory has to provide for themselves now. You’ll see the warlords fight over this land heavily.

Some of these warlords will likely attempt to legitimize themselves by catering to the dwindling empire. It is surprisingly common for these warrior kings to be given posts and titles by the old empire along with their cultural titles (that are often lineage based). Provided they become big and strong enough to be noticed. It creates the illusion that the empire is still in control, and it provides a reason for people to follow said kings beyond the threat of murder which can only take you so far.

From here the kings will try to establish their own legal systems and codes. If the empire is still around there will often be conflict between them. The aggressor depends. The empire will want to reclaim lost territory. The kings will want to cast off the illusion of subservience. And courtly politics will be as deadly as ever so you can bet both sides will have their policy change relatively quickly.

Of course there will be some territories that the old empire will not want to reclaim, probably at the far outskirts of the empire and places that were never that profitable. If they don’t have old government systems to fall back on all the legitimacy and chance for growth provided by the empire giving titles is gone. Expect even more chaos and violence than usual. A lot of the tech brought to the land by the empire to be disregarded or fall out of favor. Cities will shrink as jobs have to go back out to the farms (remember the trade lines have been greatly reduced, all food and production must be internal now). At its worst this situation can be near apocalyptic. Writing may go extinct for hundreds of years. And an era of legends occurs, probably inspired by various strongmen style warlords.

Now what happens if the empires military is just defunded? Good and bad. The military becomes the law, which it already pretty much was. This is a structure that can be relied upon. But the truth is you can’t really get between heavily armed men and their money. If their military leader is rich and smart he may be able to marshal the army to establish his own kingdom and keep everything afloat. If he is not the army will replace him with someone who will get them their money. This can often lead to raiding either their own territory they’re supposed to be protecting. Or others. If it’s their territory expect the chaos period to occur just with a jump start of violence. If it’s others then we can see this territory start to expand. Or at least attempt to. If they lose things can go very badly indeed. But if they don’t then the military leader can create a strong dynasty and kingdom.

There is one subset of the attacking others mentality, and that is attacking the empire itself. The rich and charismatic military leader can claim that the empire has fallen into disarray and they need their money as they were promised. This leads to civil war. If the leader is strong, cunning, and ruthless enough they can make themselves emperor and even potentially push back the dwindling of the empire by creating new policies learned from their experience living on the highly conflict filled edge of said empire.

Or this can cause a chain reaction where every military governor decides they can be emperor if they want and creates a huge period of complete turmoil until one definitively comes out on top or the empire splits apart completely. If it splits expect all the sides to be trying to make themselves stronger than their neighbors by trying to conquer them or other colonies.

Ok so this whole thing has been a lot of violence and death. And that definitely is what it will look like in the wide view. But it’s important to note, that with the empire gone the resources available to create vast conquering armies will likely go with them. Violence will be frequent but at much smaller scale than before. Especially in the most dilapidated locals. Raiding will be frequent but death on the battlefield will actually be decreased (unless a different huge violent empire comes calling, then our small warlord/king is screwed unless he makes a lot of alliances really fast). Furthermore, with the cities abandoned for the fields we’ll see life expectancy and nutrition increase. Well it will increase after the period of starvation as everyone tries to get farming jobs and figure out what crops to grow.

And what’s really neat is all of this will be happening all at the same time in different colonies and territories.