Zoldaad

The Zoldaad Empire is a major political power in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius and the main antagonistic force of the Zoldaad Chapter. The Zoldaad Empire is the holder of the Fire Crystal. The empire is governed by Emperor Sozhe.
==Profile==
The Zoldaad Empire is a technologically advanced nation, having electric trains and several factories. While the previous history of the Empire is unknown, at present time it has conquering ambitions and has thus turned into a heavily militarized regime.
To sustain this governance, the Empire imposes heavy taxes on their citizens and forces civilians to participate in the war effort. This has caused distress and an unbearable life on the populace and led to the creation of the Raven as a resistance movement.
The Zoldaad Empire's main forte is its mechanical might, mass producing Magitek technology and robots, as well as a Communication Tower responsible for directing signals. All this technology is created through the energy of the Fire Crystal.
Despite the current tyranny, a handful of individuals in high-ranking position do not agree with the current status quo. Such figures include Crown Prince Shera.
==Story==
After Rain, Lasswell, Fina, Lid, and Nichol make it their goal to stop the Sworn Six of Paladia following the events at the Olderion Federation, Nichol suggests the party travel to the Zoldaad Empire to protect the Fire Crystal from the Veritas, as Nichol is familiar with the region.
During their travels on train the party discusses the infamy of the Empire while a mysterious man appears before them, attempting to flirt with Lid and Fina, gifting them a rose. The man departs, and the party is interrogated by Zoldaad Soldiers looking for rebels. They identify the rose as a rebel symbol, and the party is forced to fight their way through the army and jump from the train to avoid capture.
They cross a desert to reach an Abandoned Orphanage. In the ruins they meet the mysterious man who introduces himself as Jake. While the party is not happy for being set up, Jake assures he trusted they would be fine. Jake is the leader of the Raven movement, a rebel organization that seeks to overthrow the government, and tells them about the regime's cruel tyranny. Although the party is reluctant to help as they prioritize the protection of the Fire Crystal, Jake reveals to the Grandshelt Knights that Zoldaad plans an invasion on the kingdom as it is rich in resources. With the kingdom rebuilding after the assault of the Veritas, they cannot resist another attack, and thus the party decides to join forces with Jake.
Jake leads the party to the Empire's Electric Tower, a comms facility, and renders their machinery useless. Upon exiting they are faced by the X-ATM092 being activated by a soldier. The party fights the machine several times due to its self-repairing abilities, but Lid figures where its device is and they defeat the machine for good.
The party's next goal is upon the Magitek Factory where they head to cut the cable that fuels energy from the Fire Crystal to cripple their military might. At the facility Lasswell protects Rain from a laser attack, hiding the severity of his wound from everybody.
The party makes its way to the Fire Shrine to protect the Fire Crystal from The Veritas. They encounter Veritas of the Flame, whom Lasswell faces alone by unleashing the true power of his blade, Purple Lightning. Injuring Flame, Lasswell creates an opening for the party to defeat the Veritas. The battle takes its toll on Lasswell whose previous injury has aggravated, and he is on the verge of death. Veritas of the Dark appears and heals both Lasswell and Flame, deeming it a loss that Lasswell would die after using Purple Lightning. Dark deems Rain and Lasswell as worthy to face them, and the two parties engage in a battle. The Veritas are defeated and retreat, vowing to take Rain's party seriously from now on.
Upon reaching the Crystal Chamber, the party is unsure of what to do with the Fire Crystal. Jake, employing a radical solution, destroys the Crystal for the sake of his people much to the bewilderment of the party. Unbeknown to Jake however, the destruction of the Fire Crystal unleashes a monster sealed within, which Fina identifies as Dragon King Bahamut. Through her memories Fina explains 
that Bahamut is the strongest of all Espers, but whether he will pose an immediate threat to humanity is unknown. Jake justifies his actions since the Zoldaad Empire is a present danger. With the Fire Crystal destroyed Jake plans to use this chance to attack Zoldaad directly, and coerces the party into action given they are by now considered rebels as well.
The party heads to a town that doubles as a forward base of the rebels, but they find it ravaged by an airship strike. Jake orders the rebels to treat the wounded while he goes to a personal mission. Within Zoldaad's high command there are those who oppose Emperor Sozhe's regime and secretly aid the rebels, one such case being the Crown Prince Shera. If the rebels defeat Sozhe, the Empire will be in chaos, and the one that can help them is the Crown Prince. Jake plans to "kidnap" Shera for his safety and to carry out his plan by wrecking havoc in the imperial capital.
The party succeeds and become surrounded by soldiers. The next part of the plan is to be captured to infiltrate Zoldaad from the inside. Much to their surprise the party finds Dr. Lazarov and Evan in the high ranks of Zoldaad. Evan chastises Lid's pacifist ideas as naive while gloating on the Invincible's might that could reduce any town to ashes, much like the rebels' base, and how he will build more weaponized airships. 
The soldiers throw the party into the Empire's arena where they meet Emperor Sozhe, who is company of Lazarov. Sozhe promises "princesses" to the victors, with Lazarov correcting that there are no princesses in the Empire. The Emperor is behaving strangely, but the party is faced by a Behemoth and overcomes the beast. Sozhe enters the arena himself with soldiers to greet the party, and gives them a prize. Jake attempts to claim the prize by getting close to Sozhe, but the Emperor gloats that he can see through their identities. Jake alleges that they were never trying to hide, but Sozhe has the party sent to the dungeons.
At the first guard shift one of the maids knocks the guard unconscious and frees the party. She is Amelia, the Crown Prince's maid. Shera's allegiance with the rebels has been discovered and he has been imprisoned. Jake sets on rescuing him. After battling several soldiers the party meets with the Crown Prince who discloses that Dr. Lazarov had discovered his alliance, and that ever since that man came, Emperor Sozhe has changed; despite the nation's militaristic tendencies, they wage war for more noble reasons than currently. Shera believes Sozhe has become Lazarov's puppet, but Shera is resolved to bring peace back to the nation.
The party infiltrates Zoldaad Castle whose soldiers are revealed to be disguised monsters. The party finds Emperor Sozhe at the throne room, and learn he has been experimented upon by Lazarov and turned into a mindless puppet. Lazarov wanted war to conduct his experiments, and Emperor Sozhe proved more useful to his goals than the Veritas with whom he parted ways. He has Sozhe battle the party while he escapes. The regent is defeated, and with the last of his life regains his senses and regrets his actions and blames his desire for power as the drive that made him easily controllable. Emperor Sozhe passes away leaving his ruling duties to his son, thus putting an end to the tyranny.
The party chases Lazarov down into the Magic Labs. Lazarov explains he pursues eternal life and experiments on resurrection. The party claims eternal life doesn't exist, but he protests and gives "monsters who have lived for seven centuries" as proof. To perform his experiments he needs corpses, and the most efficient way is through instigating war. Evan, too, has been brainwashed by Lazarov. Lazarov needed the Invincible and thus an engineer. He escapes while unleashing his zombies on the party.
Dr. Lazarov and Evan board the Invincible and prepare to burn Zoldaad to get more corpses. Bahamut attacks the airship with his Megaflare, forcing Lazarov to hide for repairs. Shera has Amelia deliver a message to the party, saying that Lazarov was monitored into an old unused hangar, which has enough equipment to repair the Invincible. The party decides to travel there to put an end to Lazarov's menace.
The party follows Lazarov and manage to find him along with Evan. He then uses Evan to buy time while he makes his way to the Invincible in order to flee. Lid confronts Evan in one-on-one and the two are evenly matched. Eventually Evan trying to regain his senses begins to reveal the real reasons of how he ended up like he did and that his seemingly cruel actions were all to get enough money to fund Lid's dream, before finally breaking out of Lazarov's control.
The siblings reconcile and Evan leads the way to the Enterprise an airship he developed. His machine proves fast enough to catch up to the Invincible, allowing the party to board it and chase after Lazarov for one last time. Lazarov wonders about his circumstances and realizes Jake's true identity. The party finds him and Lazarov, cornered attempts to negotiate with Jake, revealing what he knows of him. If Jake fights on his behalf, Lazarov promises to disappear from Zoldaad. Jake seemingly looks interested but then injures Lazarov, revealing he has no intention to betray his comrades, much less for Lazarov's sake. The scientist then decides to fight the party himself in a desperate attempt to save his life but is defeated.
Lazarov still alive doesn't resign, but suddenly Veritas of the Heavens appears. Lazarov attempts to plead with his "comrade" to save him but Heavens shrugs him off, by saying the Veritas don't have any allies except themselves and that they will achieve their goals by their own strength. Lazarov, surprised asks what he is doing in the airship then and Heavens responds that they thought of Lazarov purely as a "buzzing fly", but that his selfish theft of the Invincible for his personal goals was far more insolence they could tolerate and has the mad scientist executed, putting an end to his insane endeavour for good.
Heavens congratulates the party on being able to defeat Dark and Flame. Rain asks if he wants some of the same but Lid stops him and asks Heavens if he is truly Cid and why he would act as one of the Veritas. Heavens responds that he is indeed Cid and in turn asks Lid if she knows what the Crystals are and why they exist. Seeing Lid is unable to respond he further elaborates that if they do not find the truth themselves they are not worthy of answers. He reveals that for 700 years he felt nothing but hatred but that he's fond of his time with the Dwarves and felt grateful for passing onto the arts of engineering. He then praises the inventor of the Enterprise as he felt moved at seeing airship technology to have progressed so much and requests Lid to pass his compliments to the person responsible, to which she agrees to do. Having nothing left to say Heavens uses his powers over wind to expel the party from the Invincible. The party watches from afar worried but Lid reassures them that Cid won't use the Invincible for genocide like Lazarov did. Jake trusts in her and gives the party his thanks for making Zoldaad safe again.
==Important people==
*Sozhe (Emperor)
*Shera (Crown Prince)
*Dr. Lazarov (Close adviser)
*Evan (Airship Engineer)
*Amelia (Crown Prince Maid)
*Wilhelm (General)
==Trivia==
*The Zoldaad Empire's alludes to two different political powers in the Final Fantasy series.
**The kingdom of Karnak in Final Fantasy V also abused the Fire Crystal to fuel their power.
**The Militesi Empire in Final Fantasy Type-0 exploited the White Tiger Crystal to develop their mechanical might.
de:Zoldaad
Category:Organizations in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius