Crystal Empire

The **Crystal Empire** is a country north of Equestria and east of Yakyakistan. Its capital is Crystal City.

Its population is primarily made up of Ponies.

## Politics

The Crystal Empire is a parliamentary monarchy. It is ruled by a monarch which typically holds the title of prince or princess. Its current ruler is Princess Cadence.

The Crystalline parliament is known as the House of Dukes and its members are all the dukes and duchesses of the empire.

### Administrative divisions

The Crystal Empire has the following territories:

* Borea
* Crystal City
* Nevado
* Ursia

## History

*See also Timeline.*

Crystal City was founded in ancient times and it was ruled by a line of dukes and duchesses. This city sat on a crystal rich area and had a strong economy largely based on mining crystals.

This made it a valuable target. Rival cities, however, would hardly be capable of overtaking Crystal City individually as it was larger and with a more powerful economy than either of them, but the possibility of a coalition of rivals was a real concern.

Because of this, Crystal City grew its army and poured research into magic with special focus on its war applications, becoming one of the prominent cities in magical warfare at the time.

Meanwhile, the rival cities tried to pledge friendship with Equestria and become allies in taking over Crystal City since Equestria would essentially decide the war, being a proper kingdom among a bunch of duchies and city-states.

Duchess Amore, the ruler of Crystal City at the time, went on a negotiation trip to Ponyville (which then was the capital of Equestria) and offered an alliance with Equestria which involved free trade and mutual defense, something both countries found in their best interest.

With Equestria as an ally, Crystal City went on a series of successful military campaigns where their rival cities were assimilated. Their domains were renamed the Crystal Empire, Crystal City was declared its capital and Duchess Amore was crowned its Queen.

Yakyakistan was the only local domain that resisted being integrated into the Crystal Empire as they had numerous advantages. Yakyakistan is high up in the mountains, it has a freezing climate, yaks are notoriously resistant in physical combat and the Crystal Empire was already overextended and its supply lines were strained from growing from a city into an empire in the reign of a single ruler.

However, as impressive as Crystal City's growth into an empire under her reign was, Queen Amore wasn't without her enemies. Internal factions of the empire saw the alliance with Equestria as damaging to the empire's independence and sacrificing Crystalline interests to those of foreign powers.

Isolationist factions, led by Duke Sombra, had Amore assassinated with a crystallization spell and Sombra, crowning himself king, took her place as leader of the empire.

Sombra was an absolutist king in contrast with the more enlightened rule of Amore and had the parliament dissolved to remove any leverage from the more pro-Amore factions and concentrate power on himself to rule on behalf of the empire's interests.

Sombra broke the alliance with Equestria, which prompted them into action. Equestria, using the pretext of taking down the usurper king and freeing the population, started an invasion.

Most of the empire quickly fell to the Equestrian army until Sombra only controlled some of the northwestern islands.

However, the Equestrian army had to stop as they were overstretched and resistance in the conquered territories became widespread. The expansion of the Crystal Empire had been recent and most of the ponies still identified with their region of birth rather than the cities of Crystal City or Ponyville, and saw the rulers they had had as a not rightful foreign imposition.

With their local governments having been removed long ago and a common rejection of imperialism, a lot of the settlements in Crystal Empire lands founded independent ruling councils instead, rejecting any other rule. This inspired the myth of the Crystal Empire disappearing as the empire itself had disappeared and the land had turned into small, self ruling communities.

Equestria recalled the invasion as costs mounted but results were scarce and there were other conquest plans.

At this time, Sombra and his successors built their forces back up. Centuries later, after amassing a significant army, the remnants of the empire began an invasion to take the empire back to its maximum extension (hence the myth of the Crystal Empire with Sombra "reappearing").

The invasion advanced fast and the small communities were easily overrun although they offered staunch resistance after the invasion. That time, however, Equestria was much larger and using the same pretexts, they restarted the war and removed the empire that had been created by Sombra for good.

Equestria honored its casus belli of restoring the Crystal Empire to its rightful rule by consolidating the conquered lands into a state with the same government system as the old Crystal Empire and installed an alicorn noble called Cadence who had a claim to trace her roots to Amore as its puppet ruler.

## Economy

### Currency

Like Equestria, the Crystal Empire uses the bit as a currency.

## International relations

The Crystal Empire has always had close ties to Griffonstone. The two countries were allies under Amore, although the alliance was debilitated after Sombra's coup. Still, strong cultural ties remain in place which is a strong reason for Griffonstone's participation in the Equestrian Games.

## Culture

### Values

Freedom is a strong value among Crystalline creatures, dating back to the original Equestrian occupation.

It is said that when the Crystalline lands rejected Equestrian occupiers, cities celebrated by ripping off the Equestrian flags from their public buildings, dousing them in stone oil and setting them ablaze, an act punishable by law in Equestria, before hanging the flags of their own cities.

In one of these burnings, an old pony from Canterlot approached the flag burners to reproach their actions. "Hypocrite that you are, for you speak of the freedom to insult others, but what about others' freedom to insult you? You take your pride in the defense of rights, but I only see Equestrian flags in this pyre and I have yet to see you equally defend my right to burn your flag as well."

To these words, the local leader which had arranged much of the resistance and had become the de facto ruler of the city galloped to the city hall, ripped off his banner, and swiftly came back to throw it into the fire, responding "Now my flag burns equally. Let the flames that consume the Equestrian flag represent our rejection of being the victims of oppression and let the flames that consume our own flag represent our rejection to becoming the ones that oppress others."

Although the accuracy of this legend is unknown, it has persisted as a foundational tale of Crystalline libertarianism.