Magnus Imperium (Fallout Alternate History)

The **Magnus Imperium**, or **Grand Empire**, is an autocratic empire based upon the ancient Roman Empire. It was founded in 2255 when Caesar's Legion, the military organization that predated the Imperium, claimed Flagstaff as the capital of a new empire. It was founded by Edward Sallow (who took the name Caesar) and Joshua Graham, who created the Legion as a way to unite the various tribes in the Four States Commonwealth under one cultural banner and advance civilization in the post-war world. The Imperium's citizenry consists mostly of reconditioned tribals and their descendants.

## Society and culture

### Class structure

Imperial society is divided into four main groups: the Legionarii (Legionaries), the Equites (Landowners), the Pontifices (Priests), and the Servi (Slaves). Legionaries encompass all citizens that have been conscripted into the Legion, from Recruit Legionaries to Legates, and have full rights within Caesarean Law. Equites are men who are valuable to the economy and are exempted from military conscription. These landowners work as merchants, scientists, doctors and other specialized careers. Pontifices are the priests of the Empire and are in charge of holding religious ceremonies and educating children, usually the children of slaves. Pontifices are barred by Caesarean Law to hold any political position as a check on their influence within the upper echelons of Imperial governance. Servi are slaves, who have a wide-variety of functions; there are personal slaves under the ownership of the Man of the household, slaves under the ownership of Equites who work in factories and workshops, slave labourers who build much of the Imperium's frontier towns, and much more.

Movement between the social classes is possible, but difficult depending on the circumstance; there are slaves who have become citizens through various means and legionaries who have been disgraced and subsequently enslaved. The most common way a slave is freed is when an Imperial takes a slave woman to be his wife; she automatically becomes a Femina Imperatoria in that case. This is only permitted if the slave is under the ownership of the man who wishes to marry her and must not be vitally important to the Empire as a slave; the latter condition is a rare circumstance, but there is a story of an Equite (which inspired a famous romantic tragedy novel) who wished to marry one of his factory workers, but Caesar himself forbade it as she was deemed too useful because of her remarkable ability to create elegant clothing for the Praetorian Guard. The reverse is prohibited as women may not own property (including slaves) and so are barred from marrying those of a lower class. Any citizen may be stripped of their citizenship under Caesarean Law if convicted of committing a serious crime and the available punishments include being condemned as a slave. Generally these slaves are treated poorly and are given the worst jobs as punishment for their crimes.

#### Pontifices

Pontifices are the priestly caste of Imperial society, and are primarily responsible for religious ceremonies and handling the Empire's educational institutions. The highest-ranking priest is technically Caesar, who is *ponitfex maximus* in addition to being the secular ruler of his realm, but below him sit the College of Pontiffs, made up of Caesar's most trusted pontifices that advise him on matters relating to the caste and the Empire at large with regards to education and spirituality. As each of these pontifices are the heads of the religious hierarchy of each province, the number of seats in the College of Pontiffs changes when new provinces are incorporated into the Empire; when the college was founded, there were five priests who sat in it, but the number eventually grew to thirteen under Caesar Tertius. Caesar has sole authority on the appointment of the College of Pontiffs, but in the event of his incapacitation, his Augustus will oversee these duties.

The second class of pontifex is the *pontifex minor*, who are the most numerous pontifices and aid higher-level

#### Equites

Equites—or landowners—form the upper-class and aristocratic class of Imperial society. Although legionaries and pontifices also own land, as well as peregrini, an *eques* specifically denotes a land-owning male with Imperial citizenship who was not a part of the military. Generally, these equites are owners of slave-operated agricultural estates or factories that produce armor, weapons and munitions for the military.

#### Women

The women of the Imperium are an integral part of their culture. The wives of soldiers, landowners and priests are free women who serve the Legion by caring for the family while their husbands work. Woman are known as f*eminae Imperatoria*, or Imperial women, and are expected to instill "*virtus*," or virtue onto their children, teaching the male children to obey Caesar, be moral, revere the gods, and dedicating themselves to serving the state, all the while grooming the female children to become mothers and future wives. Women are not allowed to serve in the army or own land, but wives of Pontifices often take part in religious ceremonies and in general, the average *femina Imperatoria* is quite a bit more influential than outsiders often think. As the vast majority of legal rights are barred from them, the more ambitious women of the Imperium rely on cunning and manipulation to achieve their goals. It is often said that some of the more powerful Equite households have a woman pulling the strings. As Imperial society puts an emphasis on motherhood and childbearing, women with many children are looked upon with much more respect than those with fewer kids. Regardless, women are expected to be generally submissive to their husbands, who take leadership of the family.

#### Peregrini

Peregrini is the term used to denote a subject of the Empire that was neither a Roman citizen nor a slave. This applies generally to areas under loose Imperial jurisdiction or areas admitted into the Empire willingly, or at least an area taken by the Legion with a significant enough civilized presence that it was not—at least not wholly—forcibly assimilated. Although peregrini are not citizens, they do have rights within Imperial society like any non-citizen subject, but they are more numerous than slaves. The exact range of rights and privileges within the Empire enjoyed by a peregrinus depend on the territory they are a part of and what the agreement was reached between the Empire and the incorporated territory; in some places, peregrini have little more rights than slaves, but some may be privileged enough to rival the influence of some equites.

Soldiers from the peregrinus class form the bulk of the Imperial *auxilia*, or *auxiliaries*, which are made up of both non-citizen subjects of the Imperial territories, or mercenaries that hail from non-Imperial lands that either migrated to Imperial territory .

### Naming conventions

Although names of Imperials are Latin in origin, they do not follow the naming conventions of ancient Rome. Imperials retain the general given-middle-family name structure common in the wasteland. However, to further consolidate a Romanesque culture, names are actually restricted by the state; a man must give his child a Latin name and have it approved by the local registration authority in order to be issued a birth certificate. An Imperial may ask local authorities for a waiver to give their child a non-Latin name, but those are rarely accepted. Peregrini are exempt from this law, but they will have to change their names to an approved Latin one if they are to become citizens at any point in their life.

## Technology

Following precedent set by the first Caesar, the Empire firmly believes that reliance on advanced technology weakens humanity and was partially responsible for the Great War. As such, the Imperial Legion is a relatively low-tech organization that relies on numbers, physical fitness and discipline to achieve their objectives. Outside of the Legion, this attitude extends to Imperial citizens as a whole, who value self-sufficiency and living off the land. This isn't to say that the Imperium's technology is primitive; they simply value simplicity, reliability, and ease of manufacturing, and nowhere is this more apparent than their military weapons and medicinal preferences. The Imperium manufactures most of its weapons in-house in slave-operated fabricae, but they consist of melee weapons like the Gladius and Pilum, and standard-issue bolt action rifles (which comprise of the vast majority of Legionaries' ranged arsenal). Bladed weapons, throwing spears and bolt action rifles are simple to maintain and very rarely jam or break, and so these take precedent over the more expansive but more complicated arsenal of the New California Republic, not to mention the Brotherhood of Steel's arsenal of energy weapons and power armour.

The attitudes towards medicine within the Empire is based a lot more on pragmatism than onlookers give it credit for. The Imperium's reliance on herbal remedies and tribal medicine is falsely attributed entirely to their mistrust of advanced technology, when in reality stimpaks and advanced medicine are a lot more rare in Imperial territory than in New California due to their more rural and less densely populated land. That, combined with the fear of drug dependency (the Imperium frowns upon any sort of addiction), as well as its ease of creation (which feeds into the Imperial idea of self-sufficiency) makes tribal medicine a lot more practical of an alternative. As the Imperium was founded upon the assimilation of dozens of tribes, its medicinal knowledge consists of the most effective recipes passed down by generations of tribesmen that were eventually adopted by the Imperium after their assimilation. Healing powders, advanced healing poultices, antivenom, daturana, and datura-based healing drinks are all commonplace within the Empire, and every Legionary is expected to learn them to minimize dependency on Medici (Imperial medics).

## Government and military

The position of Caesar is the ultimate authority in policy and decision-making in the Empire, and that has remained true no matter who ruled it, but the optics and how Caesar used his power has shifted over the years. Caesar Primus' style of rule is a lot more like the 'dominate' period of the Roman Empire, but in a more extreme way; there was a formal autocracy without maintaining an illusion of the sovereignty of the people, and Caesar formed a cult of personality around himself, expecting everything people did to be for him without caring for family or a proper citizenry (the latter only being implemented at the suggestion of the Concilium to maintain order).

As the Imperium is rather large, it is impossible for Caesar to directly govern it, and as such the day-to-day affairs of the Empire at the local level is largely decentralized. The Empire is divided into provinces, which number thirteen

### Concilium

#### College of Legionaries

The College of Legionaries is one of the parts of the Concilium that represent the Legionary caste of Imperial society. They are made up of the Empire's most distinguished centurions appointed to the Concilium by Caesar himself. They mainly advise Caesar on the greater military and political situations in the various parts of the Empire and suggest ways in most efficiently expanding the Empire, and/or consolidating their control.

#### College of Pontiffs

The College of Pontiffs are a council of the Empire's most senior priests that are hand-picked by Caesar to sit in the college. They are one of the three colleges of the Concilium and their biggest official duty is the advisory role to Caesar in the matter of spirituality, morals and education. The college's numbers are tied to the amount of provinces the Empire has, as each pontifex that sits in the college is head of a province's religious hierarchy. Caesar has the sole authority on the appointment of the College of Pontiffs.

#### College of Equestrians

The College of Equestrians are the part of the Concilium that consist of the wealthiest and most influential landowners in the Empire. Generally, this college is called to advise Caesar on matters of the economy.

Pontifices are the priestly caste of Imperial society, and are primarily responsible for religious ceremonies and handling the Empire's educational institutions. The highest-ranking priest is technically Caesar, who is *ponitfex maximus* in addition to being the secular ruler of his realm, but below him sit the College of Pontiffs, made up of Caesar's most trusted pontifices that advise him on matters relating to the caste and the Empire at large with regards to education and spirituality. As each of these pontifices are the heads of the religious hierarchy of each province, the number of seats in the College of Pontiffs changes when new provinces are incorporated into the Empire; when the college was founded, there were five priests who sat in it, but the number eventually grew to thirteen under Caesar Tertius. Caesar has sole authority on the appointment of the College of Pontiffs, but in the event of his incapacitation, his Augustus will oversee these duties.

The emperor was the ultimate authority in policy- and decision-making, but in the early Principate he was expected to be accessible to individuals from all walks of life, and to deal personally with official business and petitions. A bureaucracy formed around him only gradually.[199] The Julio-Claudian emperors relied on an informal body of advisors that included not only senators and equestrians, but trusted slaves and freedmen.[200] After Nero, the unofficial influence of the latter was regarded with suspicion, and the emperor's council *(consilium)* became subject to official appointment for the sake of greater transparency.[201] Though the senate took a lead in policy discussions until the end of the Antonine dynasty, equestrians played an increasingly important role in the *consilium.*[202] The women of the emperor's family often intervened directly in his decisions. Plotina exercised influence on both her husband Trajan and his successor Hadrian. Her influence was advertised by having her letters on official matters published, as a sign that the emperor was reasonable in his exercise of authority and listened to his people.[203]

###

As decreed by the first Caesar, the Empire firmly . A typical legionary will wear leather armour fashioned in the style of the pre-war illustrations depicting ancient Roman legions; this armour is made mostly from Brahmin leather by slave-operated Fabricae and issued to lower-ranked legionaries. Centurions are some of the best the Legion has to offer, and so utilize better armour in battle. Generally they are of their own design by either having it custom-fabricated for themselves or putting it together through pieces taken from their fallen foes in battle (or a combination of the two). Legates have the same privileges but are offered the absolute best armour the Legion can manufacture (usually taken in the form of heavy metal armour).

Due to the scarcity of advanced arms within Imperial territory, the Legion marches into combat with relatively simple guns and melee or unarmed weapons. As a testament to this is that on average, only four men are issued guns within a contubernium (a Legion "squad" of 8 men). Of those four, only the Decanus is given an advanced one (such as an assault rifle or marksman's rifle) while the rest are given bolt-action hunting rifles in addition to their standard Legion Gladius. As for the rest of the soldiers, they will be issued only their Gladius and some Pilum (Legion spears and javelins) but they have the option of purchasing their own or can take one off a dead enemy or comrade, provided that it is of practical use for their rank and not of an ammunition type that is exceedingly rare within the Imperium.

### Legion

The Legion is the military arm of the Empire and