Zintaris Empire

insignia

The **Zintaris Empire** (also referred to as simply **The Zintaris** or **Jack's Empire**) is the official Government of Fiore, founded by Samurai Jack. It was formed from the remains of **Aku**'s Empire after he was defeated. The Zintaris Empire's Capital would be the City of Fuhai, which was formerly the City of Aku.

## History

### Birth of the Zintaris

After Samurai Jack defeated Aku, he was temporarily granted divine powers from the **Three Gods** as a reward for putting an end to Aku's 50 year long tyranny. Using these abilities, he was able to craft weapons that had a similar affect as his Sword. One of these weapons were large, magic spears that were designed to impale their targets without being fatal to them. Once a target was impaled, the spear would leave behind a magic seal in the shape of the Zintaris Symbol, the seal would either grant or revoke powers from it's target (they are capable of doing both at once however). Jack would use these spears to convert some of his former foes to be apart of his new Empire.

Jack would later begin to reorganize the remains of Aku's Empire, attempting to undo most of the damage that was caused by Aku. His empire would officially be reorganized into the Zintaris Empire on May 20th, 2097, the same day Aku was defeated. Jack would become the Emperor of the Zintaris, while Ashi would become it's Empress after marrying Jack.

### Early Years

During their early years, the Zintaris Empire would move out of the City of Aku and travel to any other cities that were created during Aku's rule. Obtaining control over these cities was not easy, as the Remnants of Aku's Empire were still in control of parts of Almia, and were unwilling to peacefully negotiate with Jack's new Empire. The Zintaris had many small scale conflicts with Aku's Remnant during their first year, with the Remnant even attempting to resurrect Aku several times.

### Birth of Fuhai

The Zintaris Empire would do many small scale projects in the City of Aku to remove any trace of Aku himself from the city. This went from simple projects like replacing all the building lights from being red to blue to come off as "less threatening" or removing any historical sites dedicated to Aku. Eventually, a large influx of Arcadian people would come to the city, some of them enrolling in the Empire themselves. With their help, the city was able to expand further, and most Aku-like buildings were removed (although some remained intact).

A new Palace for the Emperor and Empress was constructed in the same spot the Emperor's old Palace once was, this time it's more heavily fortified in case of attack in order to protect the Royal Family. The Emperor's throne for this Palace was crafted from the dead tree Aku was sealed in, spawned from the Pit of Hate.

By the 2nd year of the Zintaris Empire's existence, the City of Aku was transformed into the city of Fuhai.

### The Corruption of the Zintaris

By the time the Zintaris Empire had reached it's 3rd year of existence, problems began to arise. Samurai Jack, now Emperor Jack, had begun to grow corrupt. His corruption is a side effect of the throne's material hailing from the dead tree spawned by the Pit of Hate. The effect's from the thrones material would eventually drive Jack insane, causing him to have gone mad and be obsessed with power, this would lead to him believing in a brand now Expansionist Policy for his Empire. The goal being to expand the Zintaris to every corner of Terra.

These new policies would cause Ashi, who had not been corrupted, to attempt to flee with their newborn infant son. Although Jack and the Zintaris would attempt to stop her from fleeing Fuhai. In the end, Ashi would prevail, with the help of former Zintaris officials who did not agree with their Emperor's current actions. Eventually, the civilians would begin to flee as well.

The amount of people leaving Fuhai would anger Jack, causing him to enforce a new law allowing no one other than verified officials to leave Fuhai. To enforce this law even further, the Zintaris would begin constructing a wall surrounding Fuhai. The wall only had 4 gates, which could be served as entrances or exits. However, no civilians were allowed to leave legally. Any outsiders could enter, although they were only given limited amounts of time in the city. If this time limited was exceeded, they would be required to reside in the city permanently.

In order to expand the city even further without destroying the newly constructed wall, the Zintaris Empire would begin digging down the outline of the wall, turning Fuhai into a massive, multi-layered city. Criminal activity would spike in the lower layers of Fuhai.

Future generations born into the city and the Zintaris' domain as a whole would be completely blinded by the propaganda Jack and his Empire would spread. Being fooled into thinking life outside the city is dangerous and not suitable to live in, and believing that Samurai Jack had become a God himself when he defeated Aku.

The former Empress, Ashi, as well as the escaping former officials and civilians, would go on to transform one of the outer cities into SeiSei.

### The Zintaris vs The Resistance

After these new laws were put in place and the wall completed construction, a small group of former members of the Cult of Aku entered the city to perform a ritual to attempt resurrecting Aku. The Zintaris would eventually storm the location the ritual was being preformed in, however, the cultists did succeed. Aku was resurrected from essence of the Pit of Hate. The Zintaris would kill most of the cultists who preformed the ritual, the others would attempt to escape with Aku, but not before Jack threw one of the Spears of Justice, impaling Aku and restraining most of his powers with Arcane magic, leaving a Zintaris marking on his back.

The remaining Cultists and Aku would then go into hiding, while Jack and his Empire would begin to mercilessly hunt them down. The Zintaris would soon begin to falsely accused citizens of being a member of the Cult of Aku, which would lead to their execution. Despite these claims being false, Jack would do nothing to prevent his Empire from enforcing these fatal punishments on the people of Fuhai. The presence of Aku being in a unknown area in the city along with the false executions would lead to more and more citizens attempting to escape Fuhai, and flee to SeiSei to seek refuge. These people would fail, and the Zintaris would punish them for trying to escape as well.

A small group of Freedom Fighters would form and attempt to help civilians escape Fuhai, while also plotting to overthrow Jack and the Zintaris. Eventually, this small group of Freedom Fighters would go on to seek out Aku, believing he is one of the only people strong enough to defeat Jack. After finding Aku, the two groups would begin to work together to form the Resistance; which would go on to recruit more and more people, creating more resistance cells, and would continue to fight against Jack's Empire for the next 15 years.

### Negotiating with Legion

As the fight against the Resistance continued, the Zintaris Empire would be approached by Legion; a coalition government formed after the Great Flood, seeking to unionize the world. Legion's main headquarters reside in the city of **Banten**, another city in Almia, left untouched by the Zintaris. Seeking the Zintaris to join them, Legion would begin Negotiations with the Zintaris Empire by having several meetings between Jack and the Sage Trinity; three men who are in charge of Legion. Despite these meetings being long distance, Legion would eventually send Master Albert; Legion's head scientist, to Fuhai. Upon arrival, Albert would reside in his own private quarters within the Royal Palace.

The negotiations with Jack and the Zintaris would continue, however it was increasingly difficult to negotiate with the Zintaris, as one of the requested requirements needed for them to join Legion would be to cancel their Expansionist Policies, which Jack was not committed to doing so.

## Trivia

* The Zintaris is a fictional symbol created by Genndy Tartakovsky for the actual Samurai Jack show
* The symbol was used by Jack's Father's old Empire before Aku took over