Ardent Empire

The **Ardent Empire**, sometimes referred to as the **Empathic Empire**, is a location in *Magical Girl Policy*. It was a kingdom favored by Fate that existed in a universe separate from Earth, but it was destroyed during the Ardentia Civil War thousands of years ago. It was home to the Ardentia, a species resembling humans, with the citizens and other things belonging to the Empire also referred to as Ardentia. The place is important to the origin of the Spirit Guard, who along with Kunapipi receive visions of the Empire's past.

## Description

The Ardent Empire occupied several planets. The Empire's homeworld is not named, with the series not making a great distinction between it and the Empire as a whole. The homeworld is apparently somewhat similar to Earth, as Earth is considered hospitable to the Ardentia. By using stone structures called gateways the Ardentia could warp to and from other planets; they would empathokinetically search across the planes for people they could contact in this manner, then build a gateway to travel there. Connecting to other peoples this way was originally entirely benevolent on the Ardentia's part as a vehicle to spread knowledge of empathokinesis, but they would later take to conquering the worlds they encountered. The Empire fell as a result of the Ardentia Civil War, with the the remaining Ardentia scattered among various worlds; the homeworld's gateways were destroyed after being escaped through so the Other Power couldn't follow, as this enigmatic threat was responsible for annihilating the planet.

Unlike the series' depiction of Earth, which is a contemporary setting, the Ardent Empire resembles a world one might see in the fantasy genre. The Empire pioneered empathokinesis, the process of using emotional energies to affect the world, and this magic-like system directed the civilization's development, pursuing the creation of empathokinetic foci rather than the machinery that Earth would invent. While the Empire's wealth of foci can rival or surpass Earth's technology when it comes to extraordinary feats such as space travel, it is said to be at a pre-information age level as a whole. The Empire's foci used are said to appear rather mundane in comparison to what they can do.

Like its technology, the Ardent Empire's culture was intertwined with empathokinesis. With Ardentia possessing empathokinetic perception, they could sense emotional energies emanating from others. This led to social standards of what emotions are considered appropriate to intone and when, with overt ones called "overtones" and covert ones "undertones", and said emotions were proper nouns. It was considered fashionable to use empathokinesis for cosmetic purposes, such as imbuing an empathokinetic charge into one's hair for a particular effect. Empathokinesis became regulated by laws after the Empire was warned by Fate to halt experimentation on Investiture since it was part of the soul, though as corruption took hold the ruling class resumed this research in hopes of discovering a way to achieve immortality. The Empire's social divide became harsher with empathokinesis: due to the resources required for an education in empathokinetics, generally only privileged Ardentia like scholars and military personnel were learned in it, though sometimes gifted individuals of lower class received sponsorship and moved up the castes. This divide was considered normal until Platicore posed as a Guide and presented the nobles as evil for keeping this power to themselves, which sparked the Ardentia Civil War.

The Ardent Empire had its own spoken and written language. The written form has characters likened to runes and has a glyph system. For example, the symbol on Spirit Guard Valor's costume means "valorous". It is unclear if the glyphs make up the entirety of the Ardentia character set or is just one part of it.

The Ardent Empire was a monarchy, with the Empress as its final ruler. The ruling class included the royal family, the Royal Courts, the Ardentia Imperial Guard, and the Church of the High Spirits, which was the official religion of the Empire as well as a powerful empathokinetic and political force. The Ardentia worshipped the High Spirits and were also reverent of Fate and her agents, hailing the Champions that would appear throughout the Empire's history as great heroes. As the Empire became corrupt, however, the ruling class felt above any sort of rules, causing the nation to lose Fate's favor.

## Notable places

* **Gateway to Earth:** A stone structure called a gateway that allows instantaneous transit, with this one being linked to what would be known as the Standridge Hill Stone Circle on Earth, a planet the Ardentia called Terra. It became the last functional gateway during the Ardentia Civil War and thus the site of the final battle. The Scholar sent the Spirit Sticks to Earth and disabled the gateway before anyone could go through, save for Platicore doing so at the last second, dooming the stranded Ardentia to die with their homeworld.
* **Halls of Inquisition:** A series of empathic isolation cells belonging to the Church of the High Spirits. The Shrine Maiden and her subordinates were placed here for questioning following the shrine's unannounced return to the capital city.
* **Safe house:** A building in a remote part of the Empire where the Shrine Maiden and her subordinates were stationed to monitor the movements of Platicore's soldiers in the area. This is where the Maiden was told about the Princess's plan by the Scholar.

## History

### Background

The Ardent Empire was born thousands of years ago on an unnamed planet in a universe separate from Earth. Its people were favored by Fate, who they revered; the Empire's history featured many of Fate's Guides appear as her heralds and bring along heroic Champions. Seemingly as a result of the Ardentia's ability to sense emotional energies radiating from others, the royal family commissioned much research on the power of emotion. It was discovered that emotions could be harnessed to affect the physical world through a process known as empathokinesis, though there existed no practical means of doing so. This changed after the discovery of Investiture, a spiritual energy source found in all organisms, as it paved the way for the invention of the empathokinetic focus, a type of device that one could use to perform powerful empathokinetic abilities. This made empathokinesis usable by anyone properly trained in it, but said education required considerable time and money, furthering the Empire's stark social divide as only privileged Ardentia such as nobles, scholars, and the military could feasibly access this ability. When experimentation began on Investiture itself, Fate sent warnings to cease this since Investiture was part of the soul. As a result, said experiments were outlawed and more robust regulation on empathokinetic research was implemented. At some point in the Empire's history, the Church of the High Spirits was established, a religion that worshipped the High Spirits and was deeply intertwined with the government and empathokinesis.

The Ardentia looked to reach beyond their home planet. Using their empathokinetic capabilities, they sought out peoples on other planes that might be able to receive visions from them. They would then build stone structures called gateways, which were special foci that allowed them to teleport to these other worlds. At first, these visits were solely to spread knowledge of empathokinesis across the multiverse, but in time the Empire began conquering the planets it reached. The Empire's collective moral character and standing with Fate began to decline, and eventually the royals felt above any sort of rules, even restarting the forbidden Investiture experiments in hopes of finding a way to achieve immortality, as the ability to transplant Investiture gave rise to the theory that one could entirely overwrite one soul with another. Fate's warnings were ignored, and, with the deity foreseeing that the corrupt Empire would inevitably destroy itself, decided not to intervene.

At around the same time, Fate's former agent Platicore sought to crush the deity's favored peoples on the way to his ultimate goal of destroying Fate herself, under the impression that the Ardent Empire, especially the royal family, was still among said group. He traveled to the Empire and became a master of empathokinesis. He then posed as a Guide, stating that the nobility had to be taken down for keeping empathokinesis to itself and oppressing the common folk. This incited the Ardentia Civil War, where Platicore led a rebellion against the Empire. This shook the Empire to the core, as it had never before dealt with an internal threat, and paranoia of people secretly being Platicore sympathizers created disarray among the ruling class. The Empire's soldiers were better trained, but Platicore's could stand up to them thanks to his foci that fused to the body that granted considerable empathokinetic power at the cost of adversely affecting the body and mind.

After ten years of fighting, both sides were considerably weakened and the war was at a stalemate. It was at this time that the Other Power was discovered, a mysterious destructive force that defies the universe's known rules and is incomprehensible and unforeseeable even to Fate. The High Spirits could slow the Other Power's approach, but with no way to stop it, it was clear the Ardentia homeworld was doomed. The war's objective shifted to survival: one side would warp through a gateway, then immediately destroy it so the Other Power couldn't follow. Eventually, this made all of the waystones required to operate a gateway unusable, so the Empress decided a new type of gateway was needed for the Empire's final escape. This gateway would connect two worlds directly without need of a waystone, but it required a partner gateway be built on the destination world. The Empress sent visions to the Atsah, posing as the tribe's gods and instructing them in the empathokinetic techniques required to build the gateway on Earth, a planet called "Terra" by the Ardentia. The plan was to conquer Earth's young peoples so the planet could become the new home of the Ardent Empire. To lead this project, the Empress appointed the Scholar, who had offered herself to the position and was renowned for her empathokinetic research.

In actuality, the Scholar hoped to sabotage the Empire's relocation and ensure its death, as she was part of a secret plan to save Earth led by the Princess, who had historically opposed the corrupt Empress. Rebelling against the Empire was an idea the Princess had considered since childhood, but it wasn't until she was encouraged by the Mender that she would take action. The Princess sent the Scholar to recruit their friend the Shrine Maiden, who agreed to join after learning that the Church of the High Spirits, the last hope of reforming the Empire, had itself fallen into corruption while she was stationed far away. The team made up of the Princess, Soldier, Scholar, Mender, and Shrine Maiden hoped to use their powers to defend Earth from any threats it might face. The Scholar had invented the Spirit Sticks, foci said to be powerful enough to oppose the Other Power, but could only make five, not enough to save the Ardentia homeworld, since she had to hide the existence of such incredible weapons from the Empress. Instead, the Spirit Sticks would be wielded by humans on Earth. The Shrine Maiden, through a ritual, requested the High Spirits reincarnate her team as humans when their powers would be needed for Earth's defense. These reincarnations could then use the Spirit Sticks to tap into the powers of their Ardentia predecessors.

The final battle of the war was for the gateway to Earth, as the time the Other Power would overtake all of the Ardentia homeworld drew near. The Scholar needed to have uninterrupted access to the gateway for the Princess's plan to work, but the Empress would never allow the Princess and friends to be left at such an important location. To circumvent this, the Princess asked the Knight for help, who notably had the trust of both her and the Empress. He wasn't let in on the Princess's true goals, but agreed to convince the Empress to agree to a strategy he and the Soldier created. The Empress, as the Empire's most powerful empathokinetic, was placed on the front lines to battle Platicore directly, while the Princess and Knight's teams were the gateway's last line of defense. While the Mender erected a barrier around the gateway, the Scholar placed her Spirit Sticks within the iris storage unit the gateways shared, configured them to only respond to those with Investiture matching one on Princess's team, and worked to disable the gateway. In the meantime, the others turned away Ardentia by claiming the Atsah had not quite finished their gateway, and struck down intruders. The lie was eventually discovered and the Other Power drew close, causing the battle to devolve into chaos. The Empress was about to finish a gravely wounded Platicore off, but left for the gateway at the news of the Princess's betrayal. The royals had an emotionally charged fight, ending with the Empress killing the Princess's entire team. The group's objective had been completed just beforehand, however, as the gateway was successfully disabled, though Platicore managed to break through the barrier and warp to Earth at the last second. He is assumed to be the only survivor of this battle, with everyone else dying either in combat or to the Other Power.

## Trivia

* In the February 2017 Q&A, Taralynn Andrews states that the Ardent Empire's unusual mix of technological levels is due to her liking the "schizotech" concept in media such as *Batman: The Animated Series*.