Empire with a Dark Secret: Difference between revisions

Hey, guess what? Your [[The Empire|entire civilization]] lives [[Dark Secret|on a lie]]. It might be a secular version of a [[Path of Inspiration]], or maybe no one in the world has ever realized that the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] powering your homes and healing your sick is actually [[Powered by a Forsaken Child]] - but in any case, [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], right?

 

 

So play nice and don't delve any further, ''capiche''?

{{examples|page=Empires with Dark Secrets}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' has an ''incredibly'' sinister government conspiracy that goes all the way back to the destruction of the ancient city of Xerxes.

* The Union in ''[[Soukou no Strain]]'', although the [[Black Box]] of their evil research was so secret that, five hundred years later, no one in the military had any idea where exactly Strains and Mimics came from. No one except the [[Defector From Decadence]], that is. And they wonder why he snaps and starts trying to kill them.

** Another dark secret might be what the [[Eldritch Abomination|Evangelions]] [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|actually]] [[Cloning Blues|are]].

 

 

== Film ==

* The Alliance from ''[[Serenity]]'' had buried the fact that some time ago, they {{spoiler|had accidentally killed 99.9% of the population of Miranda with a chemical meant to calm their violent urges, and turned the rest into the horrifically violent cannibal monsters that would become known to the rest of the Verse as the Reavers.}}

* In the [[Alternate History]] film, ''[[Fatherland (film)|Fatherland]]'', where Nazi Germany won [[World War II]], a few people begin to investigate to the various "undesirable" populations who mysteriously disappeared. Of course this means they uncover the Final Solution's death camps.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'''s Seanchan Empire can attribute its thousand-year history of prosperous expansion to enslaving feared and persecuted magic channelers as children, effectively making them extremely powerful, living tools that can be assigned and taken away by the higher-ups. No one realizes that the Phlebotinum for control only works when the controller has hidden potential to become a channeler. Controllers who learn this go into a pretty crippling state of denial.

** Likewise with the Aiel, which is a society made up entirely of [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]] practicing [[Honor Before Reason]]. It devastates them to learn that their ancestors were originally pacifists who turned away from their beliefs and failed in their mission to help the Aes Sedai in their task of transporting artifacts to safety. Once this is revealed, about one in three are taken by "the bleakness": putting down their weapons and just walking off into the desert.

* There's also the Humans in Zhan's ''[[The Conquerors Trilogy]]'', who are widely feared for having a superweapon capable of irradiating entire fleets. It turned out to be based on a well-spun accident involving a solar flare.

* The Colonial Defense Forces in [[John Scalzi]]'s ''Old Man's War'' has {{spoiler|vat-grown supersoldiers where the basic DNA used as a template comes from volunteers who die before they can have their consciousness transferred to one of the normal engineered bodies, which they use as special ops forces.}}

* Germany in the book ''[[Fatherland (novel)|Fatherland]]''.

* The Human Empire from Yulia Latynina's ''[[Inhuman]]'' is bloated and evil; a great deal of this is explicit, but corruption often turns out to run even deeper than initially thought. Better yet, a veteran of its foundation eventually explained to his great grand-son, one of the protagonists, that it used to be less corrupt and more [[Complete Monster|monstrously evil]] back then, [[Necessarily Evil|because that really was the only way to save humanity]] from the intelligent, rapidly-breeding, rapidly-growing, omnivorous Ttakas. That biological weapons were used is public knowledge; that {{spoiler|the [[The Virus]] behind the rampant [[Recycled in Space|Assassins in Space]]-like [[Murder, Inc.|terrorist]] [[Path of Inspiration|organisation]] was originally created in the First Emperor's labs ran by the aforementioned veterans in order to brainwash human [[Super Soldier|super soldiers]] into fighting with the reckless abandon required, along with some lesser things,}} is not quite as well known.

** Basically, it goes like this: She starts out describing a utopia. Then she decides that the readers won't believe in it, and starts trying to add things to change that... but none of them work until she settles on all the happiness and inspiration in the society relying on [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|one horribly abused child]]. Right around then is when it solidifies into a little crystal of horror.

* Pretty much the entire point of the [[Green-Sky Trilogy]] by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, where the secret is that {{spoiler|children were not taught about Earth's historical capacity for violence, the knowledge being kept by a select few, and anyone who disagreed with this policy got trapped below ground.}}

* [[Vorkosigan Saga]]: This is a peculiar case where it is the viewpoint society that is this. The dark secret is that the previous Emperor deliberately lost a war in order to assassinate his son Prince Serg in the process, because that was considered the [[Lesser of Two Evils]] compared with letting him come to the throne. Yes, [[The Caligula|Prince Serg really was that bad]].

 

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "The Beast Below", {{spoiler|England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland as mentioned in the episode built their own ship) are being carried through space on a star whale which they torture to control the speed - they know they can't justify their actions, but they're afraid that freeing the whale will destroy the ship. Thank goodness for Amy Pond, really.}}

** There's also the fact that {{spoiler|they feed anyone who finds out the truth and disagrees with it to the whale}}. Or simply someone who doesn't do his homework. Luckily, {{spoiler|the whale won't eat children}}.

 

== Music ==

* Hades in the folk opera [[Hadestown]] tells his Underworld subjects that he's keeping them safe from an enemy that doesn't actually exist.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** The [[Physical God|man]] they revere as their Emperor is a semi-conscious anti-theist hooked up to a life support machine [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|which runs on the power of the thousands of psyker souls it eats daily]], for a start.

*** To be fair, he was actually more of a [[Nay Theist]] who acknowledged the existenc of the [[God of Evil|Chaos Gods]], but tried to suppress all religion in the hopes of [[Gods Need Prayer Badly|starving them to death]]. To be even more fair this plan was [[Failure Is the Only Option|doomed from the start]], because the gods of the Warp feed on emotions in general, and not just the faith of their followers, so the fact that the Imperium is revering him as a [[God-Emperor]] who fights the forces of Chaos in the Warp and keeps the universe safe is actually a pretty good plan, because [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|enough people believing it helps make it true]], and if the Imperium at large found out and lost their faith the likely result is that he would die and Chaos really would win. That the secret is still pretty sinister is just another sign of of how much a [[Crapsack World]] the 40K verse is.

** The fact that the ''entire game-setting'' is a construct built by the Dark Powers, via dubious methods and for unknown purposes, also qualifies.

* Our whole world in ''[[Kult]]''. Only our prison wardens know about it, and hunt those humans who know, or are coming close to it.

 

== Video Games ==

* Solaris in ''[[Xenogears]]''. Of course, we know they're kind of evil from the outset, but the reasons of their existence and the sheer scale of their crimes are pretty incredible and known only by very, very few, and most citizens in particular are blissfully ignorant.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'s'' Shin-Ra corporation holds an arguably exclusive secret; the Mako they use to make everyone's lives better is actually an extract of the life force of the planet.

* In Mass Effect 3, it is revealed that the Asari, who didn't become galactic top dog by being wisest and smartest, {{spoiler|but by having a working Prothean beacon. It turns out, their entire religion is actually fake cover cover for said beacon. If you have DLC character, he also confirms that Protheans actively interfered with Asari evolution to make them what they are. Liara doesn't take these revelations well.}}

* The UPEO in [[Macekre|the Japanese original]] ''[[Ace Combat]] 3: Electrosphere'', secretly controlled by the two big corporations. Although, UPEO is more of a "UN-mandated global military with a dark secret" than any sort of empire.

 

== Real Life ==

* This can also be a [[Truth in Television]], for instance:

** The corruption and violence of the French colonial empire was a big taboo in French society until its collapse and it kept existing until today. Many French today still do not know that one of the worst famines in history happened in Algeria after France conquered it.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Organization Index]]

[[Category:The Secret Index]]

[[Category:Plots]]