Imperator crisis
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The Imperator crisis (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) was The Book of the War's name for the crisis which surrounded the rise, dictatorial rule, and downfall of the Imperator.
The Book's account of the crisis had notable similarities to (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) other accounts' chronicles of Morbius's Presidency and the subsequent Gallifreyan Civil War, (TV: The Brain of Morbius [+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"], PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"], etc.) with one account suggesting that Morbius had adopted the alias of "the General", (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) a synonym of "Imperator".
The crisis was also considered a portent or "retro-treflection" of the War in Heaven by some, being, at any rate, a "moment of catastrophe" which led directly to the Houses' rearmament phase and their participation in the war. (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
History
Lead-up
The primary cause of the Imperator crisis was widely understood to be a mysterious anomaly within the Imperator's biodata, which resulted in him being constructed by the breeding-engines in such a way as to possess a personality and willpower completely unlike the sterility of the archons of the past ten million years. He was considered one of the four most important mutations of this "broken generation", alongside the future War King, Grandfather Paradox, and a fourth renegade who would similarly influence the wider universe via his interventionism, (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) the Doctor. (PROSE: Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"]) The flaws were detected right from the off, but the Ruling Houses, having no experience of worrying that something might be wrong, did not worry overmuch, assuming that the minor personality deviancies exhibited by the new archons would be smoothed over by the academies. (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
The Imperator Presidency
- Main article: Imperator Presidency
According to The Book of the War, the Imperator came to the Presidency 300 years after being synthesised by the flawed breeding-engines. He immediately took a number of unprecedented decisions, installing himself as a "brutal, mono-maniacal God-Emperor" in stark contrast to the largely ceremonial and symbolic role that the Presidency had become. His demands included direct military interference in the affairs of the lesser species via the recruitment of mercenaries and followers, as well as the "preemptive" deconstruction and reconstruction of History itself according to newly-rewritten Protocols which would more directly facilitate the aims of the Houses in general, and the Imperator's own family House Dvora in particular. To support himself, the Imperator had the Order of the Weal and a cult of personality he formed around himself. Eventually, however, the Order of the Weal realised that he was unstable and denounced him to the Ruling Houses. (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
The Imperator goes rogue
Undeterred by his loss of the Presidency, the Imperator simply took his followers and mercnaries off-world and continued his war against the rest of the Universe. There, the Imperator committed a number of war crimes, causing "among hundreds upon hundreds of foreign cultures". Throughout it all, despite the ruthlessness of his methods, he continued claiming that he was acting "for the greater good of universal civilisation", sometimes with justification, sometimes not. Either way, he made no secret of his species, which caused various alien authorities to turn their attention to the Homeworld for the first time in its history. (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Downfall of the Imperator
Eager to disassociate themselves from the Imperator's crimes before the "lesser species" banded together to attack the Homeworld itself, the Ruling Houses decided to fight back against the rogue Imperator directly and capture him. Wanting to be seen to have "a sense of justice", they had him very publicly executed; this was, at least officially, the first time in ten million years that a member of the Houses had been deliberately killed beyond regeneration by one of their own. Though it brought a final end to the Imperator crisis, the act shocked the other Houses to their core, being seen as, in some respect, precisely what the Imperator would have done. (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Aftermath
In the centuries following the Imperator's rule, despite the reaction aaginst his more obviously violent reforms, House society adopted many of the broader changes in ideology which he had spearheaded, including a willingness to abandon traditions for the sake of a strategic advantage, and indeed, to accept the idea of participating in violence and military action. As such, it foreshadowed and set up the War in Heaven. It also gave rise to a climate during which other interventionist movements arose, including, down the line, Faction Paradox. (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
