>>95471197>Empires conquer, control, and consume. They dominate, they take what is not theirs. They enslave peoples and destroy cultures and stamp out rebellions.THIS ACTION HAS NOT MY CONSENT.
You can make an Empire that is one of the good guys.
Take the Empire from Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Despite how it's named, it's a federation of provinces ruled by Elector Counts who elect from among themselves a new Emperor. They are not evil, but squabble a lot, yet when shit hits the fan, they unite to fight against a common enemy.
The reason they are so unified is that they were united by Sigmar The Barbarian. The guy who became a patron god for both the aforementioned uniting their barbarian ancestors against the Forces of Chaos, but also for a lot of badass stuff he did.
Compared to it's neighbor, The Kingdom of Bretonnia, the Empire is pretty meritocratic and advanced for a crapsack place, whereas Bretonnia, despite being a mix of Arthurian Britain and Medieval France, is in fact a place of horrid peasant abuse (though it's not because the Bretonnians are evil, but either stupid, incompetent, lazy, not caring, or a combination of all these, yet luckily there are those who do care for their peasants), though I blame it on Medieval Stasis due to Wood Elves and their bullshit.
The same about slavery. Araby and the Dark Elves have slave systems, but the former is one of the good guys, while the latter are massive assholes. Why? Because of how they treat their slaves. Araby has slave rights (after 40 years of work a slave is freed, the children of slaves are considered free people and it's guaranteed by Araby law, and slave owners that abuse their slaves will have their slaves taken away and have the same abuse done on them tenfold). Dark Elves see slaves as either cheap workforce, playthings to torture or sacrifices.
