Emet-Selch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unnecessaryflourishes) wrote2020-08-24 10:04 pm
unnecessaryflourishes) wrote2020-08-24 10:04 pm
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YOU
Player name: Sceadu
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
draconic
Referral: Rae!
Current characters: N/A
THEM
Character Name: Emet-Selch (aka Hades aka Solus zos Galvus)
Character Age:Old as balls Upwards of 12000. Appears to be in his late 20s/early 30s
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon Point: Just before the final fight of 5.0
History/World: have a link!
Personality: Upon first meeting him, or indeed, spending any significant time with Emet-Selch, a handful of things are immediately apparent about him. First, that he seems to more or less exist up at the high end of the 'being dramatic on purpose' scale and appears to have no real intention of not being so. Second, that where he's not being dramatic, he's often being pointedly sarcastic. And third, that he's actually kind of terrible person, to the point that he's not only willing to troll the ever-loving heck out of his grandson but also to use that same trolling to drive home the fact that his grandson literally cannot tell anyone the true nature of the empire that Emet built. Nor, indeed, that to believe in the empire is to believe in a lie. Similarly, he directly claims to not consider most of the inhabitants of the world to actually be people, though whether or not this is actually the case is somewhat up for debate (more on that later).
That said, for all that he is undeniably Not A Good Person, the overall impression of him tends to be someone who is... approachable. Someone who might at least consider listening to opposing viewpoints or, barring that, someone whose reasons and motives are at least somewhat understandable. True, he might never give an entirely straight answer, and is just as likely to give a non-answer to question as he is to give any sort of explanation, but if someone asks the right question, or otherwise knows how to read behind the lines, the answers are still there. In bits and pieces that might be all but impossible to understand until one has enough of them, but they are still there none the less. That there are some things he's willing enough to give a more direct answer on (usually things that have nothing at all to do with his own plans) helps to some extent, but even then it's often filtered through the lens of what he wants out of a situation. He has absolutely no scruples about using misdirection, half-truths and any other sort of verbal trickery in order to mislead whoever he's talking to. And is more than willing to let someone make a fool out of themselves besides, be it because he's talked them in circles or because they've simply misjudged some (or all) of what he was trying to say. He might be approachable, but that doesn't mean he's inclined to be nice.
It should also here be noted that his decision to appear in the form he does - a form that is both easily identifiable and one that is well-known besides - is very much a deliberate choice on his part. Though he does later explain that he actually prefers to maintain the same appearance until his 'duty' is seen through however long that should happen to take, he would still have had to expend actual effort to appear as he does and that alone is very nearly notable. You see, Emet-Selch is, by and large, very much inclined to expend only the minimum amount of effort on anything. He isn't about to half-ass things - what he does, he does right - but for example, he offers to lend his knowledge to the player character and their allies, only to point-blank refuse to have anything to do with fighting monsters when it comes up, and only directly intervenes on the one occasion he does so because no one else would have been able to. (He claims it to be "a show of good faith", and may well have been, if also that he could have later used to his advantage if need be.) The rest of the time, Emet-Selch mostly follows the protagonists around, lurking in the background like a somewhat unimpressed cat that wants to make its presence known all the same.
Underneath the facade - and it is very much a facade, carefully crafted to both serve his schemes and plotting and his own personal interests - is another story, however. The true Emet-Selch is, in a word, tired. Of shouldering the burdens he's had to, of the eternal and ever-present work to bring about Zodiark's will, of the weight of the aeons, of hope... his life has been a long and often thankless one, and to get at why we need to take a little detour into the lore of the game. Most notable is this: the world in which Emet-Selch grew up in is not the world as it stands at the beginning of the game. The world Emet-Selch knew; the world he considers his was, at least in his description of it, very nearly a utopia. A world of peace and prosperity... and then disaster struck. A calamity, poised to destroy the very world itself. One that was only stopped when half of Emet-Selch's people willingly sacrificed themselves to give rise to a deiform entity that would be the will of the very planet itself made manifest - Zodiark. However, not everyone was really thrilled about this, and a splinter faction, through similar sacrifice, brought forth an equal to Zodiark: Hydaelyn. The two fought, and in the end Hydaelyn was successful, dealing Zodiark a blow that split him and the very world itself into thirteen shards. Fragments of the world that had been, each not more than a pale echo of what had been. This splitting - referred to in canon as the Sundering - went so far as to affect the people on the world too leaving them, too, echoes. Echoes that couldn't even remember the full truth of what had been before... and therein lies the root of the problem.
Or one of them anyway. As one of the few people to escape the Sundering Emet cannot help but both be reminded that the world used to be so much more and sees the inhabitants of the thirteen shards as pale reflections. Blind, ignorant beings, that have lost everything they used to be, and are something that reads as incorrect. On top of this, Emet-Selch was one of the people to summon Zodiark and as a result became one of Zodiark's tempered, leaving him directly bound to carry out Zodiark's will. Or rather, the desire that brought about Zodiark in the first place: salvation. He cannot stop attempting to bring back his own people and his own world even if it should mean the destruction of nearly all of the currently-extant shards because to do so would be quite literally unthinkable to the point that it is against his very nature. Moreover, he does appear to genuinely want to save his people and bring his world back even aside from the desires instilled by his tempering and will not (cannot) stop at anything in order to so. Further complicating the matter is the fact that he is, in many ways, still grieving the loss of people and the fact that he wasn't able to save them - grief he has carried with him for thousands on thousands of years because he very literally cannot let it go. As long as he is tempered, he will be driven to save his people, and as long as he driven to save them he cannot begin to move past that moment. He can, however, largely step back from taking an active role in things and has done so at several points already, mostly recently during the early parts of canon. (It doesn't last, but he does at least make the attempt.)
Also the two other people to survive the Sundering - the people he's shared eternity with - are more akin to academic peers or coworkers rather than friends and neither seem to share either in his grief over the world that was, nor any sense that they carry the even a fraction of the burden Emet-Selch seems to bear besides. Which certainly doesn't help any, even if it isn't making things worse. That said, for all that Emet-Selch is, in many ways, a tragic figure, he is also holding both people and society to an almost impossible standard (ie: that of the world-that-was) and has willingly caused the death of millions of people in the ongoing attempt to resurrect his world and his people. And despite having - fairly recently! - spent nearly 60 years living as if he were nothing more than any other mortal inhabitant of the realm neither of these two facts has changed in the slightest. Nor is he likely to do so - he believes that he is doing no less than any other person would do to bring their people back. (He may not be entirely wrong in this regard. The desire is at least understandable. But the scope of what he's doing and what he's willing to do to see that goal achieved is not, and he is either willingly or unintentionally blinding himself to the fact that he has killed millions of people in service of that goal.)
Items: Nothing save what he's wearing
Powers/skills: As befitting a major antagonist (and of relatively high-level content at that), not to mention being one of the most powerful characters to currently exist within the game, Emet-Selch has a veritable host of abilities, both supernatural and otherwise. Nerfs will be marked in bold.
~Ascians and the Echo
Like all his fellow Ascians Emet-Selch is possessed of a set of abilities that - in mortals - is generally referred to as 'the Echo'. In addition to allowing him to understand all spoken language, it also allows him, essentially, transcend the bonds of mortal flesh. This in turn lets him not only escape death by leaving his corporal host and escaping into the rift between dimensions, it also allows him to possess new hosts, leaving him functionally immortal. Additionally, once in a mortal body, he's also capable of reshaping it to his desired appearance as well as disappearing "into the shadows" as a form of what appears to be either teleportation or disapparation, along with the Standard Video Game Antagonist dramatic floating in midair. He also has a fancy glowy mask made of magical energy that he can call up. This serves to indicate who he is, and identify him as being Emet-Selch specifically, regardless of what body he happens to be in. In game, he will be unable to disappear into the void, either to escape death or otherwise, and will be likewise unable to possess new hosts. Likewise, his trick of disappearing into the shadows will not take him beyond the ship.
~Creation magic
Like the name suggests, this is nothing so much as the ability to create something out of nothing, and is an ability that all of Emet-Selch's people shared, to one degree or another. Emet-Selch, however, appears to use this relatively sparingly - we see him directly use it on only one occasion, to create a new set of clothes for someone, and it's further implied that he must have used it at some point to create both his own clothes and, later, a gun. However the things stated to have been created through this method by one individual or another includes things like griffins, so presumably Emet-Selch could also do so, if he so chose. He will retain this ability overall, but be limited to inanimate, relatively simple objects (guns, yes; automatons, no) and doing so will be all the more taxing in the absence of the background magical energy of his own world.
~Sorcerer of Eld
Even by the standards of his own people - people to whom creation magic came as naturally as breathing - Emet-Selch is noted to have been a powerful mage, and both the ease with which he casts spells and the sheer scope of some of things we see him do backs this up. A list of what we see him use is as follows:
~~Shields: self-explanatory; strong enough to bear the full force of an attacking opponent's blows, but only cover the most relevant angle
~~Darkness arrows: one of his favored methods of attacking, these can either explode on contact (with a target or the ground) or simply act as if they were a bladed projectile
~~Blasts of darkness: the most versatile of his attacks, this comes in a variety of forms - blasts designed to knock foes back, ground-based explosions, actually FF-style Dark (as a spell), and darkness tendrils are all forms he uses at some point or another
~~Double: causes his next spell to cast twice
~~Energy disks: slow-moving disks of energy that fall from above and explode on contact with the ground
~~Aetherial gaol: imprisons the target(s) in a ball of magical energy. can be broken, but only from the outside
~~Doom: Final Fantasy style Doom
~~chains: also self-explanatory. Similar to aetherial gaols in purpose, but can be broken if the target struggles hard enough.
~~Black Cauldron: a massive darkness-based attack. In canon, this is strong enough to one-shot the entire party.
Additionally to all of the above we also see Emet-Selch recreate an entire city and simulacra of (some of) its inhabitants. While this is explicitly referred to as a "glamour" (the term canon uses for something like an illusion), the fact that he was capable of doing so without any outside assistance and without apparently breaking much of a sweat speaks to the sheer level of power he's on. More so when even his own people are mentioned to sometimes have needed to pool their magical abilities for larger scale works. While he prefers to not fight, doom will not have any affect on player characters and Black Cauldron will similarly be unable to one-shot characters. His illusions will additionally only be able to encompass an area similar to a mid-sized room.
~Denizen of the Underworld
Though Emet-Selch is not literally an inhabitant of the Underworld (despite the very apropos parallels with regards to his true name), he is capable of seeing the aether - the energy that exists within all living things and allows for magic to be cast - that suffuses the world itself, and the currents it makes as it crosses the world. In fact, his sight is so keen that he can pick out not just the souls of any given being but also the individual colors of same. He is also capable of reaching into the aetherial stream - sometimes also referred to as the Lifestream - and pulling out a soul, provided it still retains its shape instead of having dissipated into the aetherial sea. While he will still have this ability in game, reaching into the Lifestream will require that there be a Lifestream to reach into in the first place.
~Tempered by Zodiark
While not an ability in the strictest sense of the word, nor anything that grants him any sort of new powers, Emet-Selch has been "tempered" by the quasi-deiform being known as Zodiark. This means that, in addition to his own aether being brought closer to elemental alignment with the element of Zodiark's aether - in this case, Darkness - he has also been bound to Zodiark's will and the desire that first brought Zodiark into existence. Likewise, the fact that his very aether has become aspected to Darkness means that he finds places with high amounts of the opposing element - Light - to be distinctly unpleasant to remain in.
~Planning/Strategy
Moving on into the realm of purely physical abilities, Emet-Selch is both a brilliant tactician and excellent planner, frequently thinking several steps ahead and having plans for several contingencies, just in case his initial plans either fall to come to fruition or otherwise don't quite work out as intended. Having the advantage of an immortal's lifespan and several thousand years to get really good at it helps, but it's notable that his plan - of all the ones thrown at the player character by the various antagonists of the game - is one of the ones that comes closest to succeeding.
~Builder of Empires
Every immortal needs a hobby (or two, or three...) and empire building is Emet-Selch's most notable one. Very literally so, in fact. He masterminded the creation of the main antagonistic empire of the game inside of a single human lifespan, and under his rule as Emperor, the empire sees an almost meteoric rise to power besides, until it's very nearly the equal of any of the other major powers of that world. And just in case that alone wasn't enough, he admits to having had a hand in not just the other (long since vanished) empire of that selfsame world, but "various other imperially-inclined nations besides" and one of his fellows Ascians later directly comments that he had a "penchant for nation-building". As such, it can be presumed that he has at least a fairly thorough grasp of not just military tactics and strategy as mentioned above, but also any of the various bits and pieces that go into ruling a highly-militaristic empire - and ruling it well, by most accounts - for some 60-odd years.
SAMPLE
In space, no one can hear you scream / I get the feeling this isn't Kansas anymore, Toto
PERMISSIONS
Let us cast off titles and pretense, and show our true faces to one another
Player name: Sceadu
Contact:
Referral: Rae!
Current characters: N/A
THEM
Character Name: Emet-Selch (aka Hades aka Solus zos Galvus)
Character Age:
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon Point: Just before the final fight of 5.0
History/World: have a link!
Personality: Upon first meeting him, or indeed, spending any significant time with Emet-Selch, a handful of things are immediately apparent about him. First, that he seems to more or less exist up at the high end of the 'being dramatic on purpose' scale and appears to have no real intention of not being so. Second, that where he's not being dramatic, he's often being pointedly sarcastic. And third, that he's actually kind of terrible person, to the point that he's not only willing to troll the ever-loving heck out of his grandson but also to use that same trolling to drive home the fact that his grandson literally cannot tell anyone the true nature of the empire that Emet built. Nor, indeed, that to believe in the empire is to believe in a lie. Similarly, he directly claims to not consider most of the inhabitants of the world to actually be people, though whether or not this is actually the case is somewhat up for debate (more on that later).
That said, for all that he is undeniably Not A Good Person, the overall impression of him tends to be someone who is... approachable. Someone who might at least consider listening to opposing viewpoints or, barring that, someone whose reasons and motives are at least somewhat understandable. True, he might never give an entirely straight answer, and is just as likely to give a non-answer to question as he is to give any sort of explanation, but if someone asks the right question, or otherwise knows how to read behind the lines, the answers are still there. In bits and pieces that might be all but impossible to understand until one has enough of them, but they are still there none the less. That there are some things he's willing enough to give a more direct answer on (usually things that have nothing at all to do with his own plans) helps to some extent, but even then it's often filtered through the lens of what he wants out of a situation. He has absolutely no scruples about using misdirection, half-truths and any other sort of verbal trickery in order to mislead whoever he's talking to. And is more than willing to let someone make a fool out of themselves besides, be it because he's talked them in circles or because they've simply misjudged some (or all) of what he was trying to say. He might be approachable, but that doesn't mean he's inclined to be nice.
It should also here be noted that his decision to appear in the form he does - a form that is both easily identifiable and one that is well-known besides - is very much a deliberate choice on his part. Though he does later explain that he actually prefers to maintain the same appearance until his 'duty' is seen through however long that should happen to take, he would still have had to expend actual effort to appear as he does and that alone is very nearly notable. You see, Emet-Selch is, by and large, very much inclined to expend only the minimum amount of effort on anything. He isn't about to half-ass things - what he does, he does right - but for example, he offers to lend his knowledge to the player character and their allies, only to point-blank refuse to have anything to do with fighting monsters when it comes up, and only directly intervenes on the one occasion he does so because no one else would have been able to. (He claims it to be "a show of good faith", and may well have been, if also that he could have later used to his advantage if need be.) The rest of the time, Emet-Selch mostly follows the protagonists around, lurking in the background like a somewhat unimpressed cat that wants to make its presence known all the same.
Underneath the facade - and it is very much a facade, carefully crafted to both serve his schemes and plotting and his own personal interests - is another story, however. The true Emet-Selch is, in a word, tired. Of shouldering the burdens he's had to, of the eternal and ever-present work to bring about Zodiark's will, of the weight of the aeons, of hope... his life has been a long and often thankless one, and to get at why we need to take a little detour into the lore of the game. Most notable is this: the world in which Emet-Selch grew up in is not the world as it stands at the beginning of the game. The world Emet-Selch knew; the world he considers his was, at least in his description of it, very nearly a utopia. A world of peace and prosperity... and then disaster struck. A calamity, poised to destroy the very world itself. One that was only stopped when half of Emet-Selch's people willingly sacrificed themselves to give rise to a deiform entity that would be the will of the very planet itself made manifest - Zodiark. However, not everyone was really thrilled about this, and a splinter faction, through similar sacrifice, brought forth an equal to Zodiark: Hydaelyn. The two fought, and in the end Hydaelyn was successful, dealing Zodiark a blow that split him and the very world itself into thirteen shards. Fragments of the world that had been, each not more than a pale echo of what had been. This splitting - referred to in canon as the Sundering - went so far as to affect the people on the world too leaving them, too, echoes. Echoes that couldn't even remember the full truth of what had been before... and therein lies the root of the problem.
Or one of them anyway. As one of the few people to escape the Sundering Emet cannot help but both be reminded that the world used to be so much more and sees the inhabitants of the thirteen shards as pale reflections. Blind, ignorant beings, that have lost everything they used to be, and are something that reads as incorrect. On top of this, Emet-Selch was one of the people to summon Zodiark and as a result became one of Zodiark's tempered, leaving him directly bound to carry out Zodiark's will. Or rather, the desire that brought about Zodiark in the first place: salvation. He cannot stop attempting to bring back his own people and his own world even if it should mean the destruction of nearly all of the currently-extant shards because to do so would be quite literally unthinkable to the point that it is against his very nature. Moreover, he does appear to genuinely want to save his people and bring his world back even aside from the desires instilled by his tempering and will not (cannot) stop at anything in order to so. Further complicating the matter is the fact that he is, in many ways, still grieving the loss of people and the fact that he wasn't able to save them - grief he has carried with him for thousands on thousands of years because he very literally cannot let it go. As long as he is tempered, he will be driven to save his people, and as long as he driven to save them he cannot begin to move past that moment. He can, however, largely step back from taking an active role in things and has done so at several points already, mostly recently during the early parts of canon. (It doesn't last, but he does at least make the attempt.)
Also the two other people to survive the Sundering - the people he's shared eternity with - are more akin to academic peers or coworkers rather than friends and neither seem to share either in his grief over the world that was, nor any sense that they carry the even a fraction of the burden Emet-Selch seems to bear besides. Which certainly doesn't help any, even if it isn't making things worse. That said, for all that Emet-Selch is, in many ways, a tragic figure, he is also holding both people and society to an almost impossible standard (ie: that of the world-that-was) and has willingly caused the death of millions of people in the ongoing attempt to resurrect his world and his people. And despite having - fairly recently! - spent nearly 60 years living as if he were nothing more than any other mortal inhabitant of the realm neither of these two facts has changed in the slightest. Nor is he likely to do so - he believes that he is doing no less than any other person would do to bring their people back. (He may not be entirely wrong in this regard. The desire is at least understandable. But the scope of what he's doing and what he's willing to do to see that goal achieved is not, and he is either willingly or unintentionally blinding himself to the fact that he has killed millions of people in service of that goal.)
Items: Nothing save what he's wearing
Powers/skills: As befitting a major antagonist (and of relatively high-level content at that), not to mention being one of the most powerful characters to currently exist within the game, Emet-Selch has a veritable host of abilities, both supernatural and otherwise. Nerfs will be marked in bold.
~Ascians and the Echo
Like all his fellow Ascians Emet-Selch is possessed of a set of abilities that - in mortals - is generally referred to as 'the Echo'. In addition to allowing him to understand all spoken language, it also allows him, essentially, transcend the bonds of mortal flesh. This in turn lets him not only escape death by leaving his corporal host and escaping into the rift between dimensions, it also allows him to possess new hosts, leaving him functionally immortal. Additionally, once in a mortal body, he's also capable of reshaping it to his desired appearance as well as disappearing "into the shadows" as a form of what appears to be either teleportation or disapparation, along with the Standard Video Game Antagonist dramatic floating in midair. He also has a fancy glowy mask made of magical energy that he can call up. This serves to indicate who he is, and identify him as being Emet-Selch specifically, regardless of what body he happens to be in. In game, he will be unable to disappear into the void, either to escape death or otherwise, and will be likewise unable to possess new hosts. Likewise, his trick of disappearing into the shadows will not take him beyond the ship.
~Creation magic
Like the name suggests, this is nothing so much as the ability to create something out of nothing, and is an ability that all of Emet-Selch's people shared, to one degree or another. Emet-Selch, however, appears to use this relatively sparingly - we see him directly use it on only one occasion, to create a new set of clothes for someone, and it's further implied that he must have used it at some point to create both his own clothes and, later, a gun. However the things stated to have been created through this method by one individual or another includes things like griffins, so presumably Emet-Selch could also do so, if he so chose. He will retain this ability overall, but be limited to inanimate, relatively simple objects (guns, yes; automatons, no) and doing so will be all the more taxing in the absence of the background magical energy of his own world.
~Sorcerer of Eld
Even by the standards of his own people - people to whom creation magic came as naturally as breathing - Emet-Selch is noted to have been a powerful mage, and both the ease with which he casts spells and the sheer scope of some of things we see him do backs this up. A list of what we see him use is as follows:
~~Shields: self-explanatory; strong enough to bear the full force of an attacking opponent's blows, but only cover the most relevant angle
~~Darkness arrows: one of his favored methods of attacking, these can either explode on contact (with a target or the ground) or simply act as if they were a bladed projectile
~~Blasts of darkness: the most versatile of his attacks, this comes in a variety of forms - blasts designed to knock foes back, ground-based explosions, actually FF-style Dark (as a spell), and darkness tendrils are all forms he uses at some point or another
~~Double: causes his next spell to cast twice
~~Energy disks: slow-moving disks of energy that fall from above and explode on contact with the ground
~~Aetherial gaol: imprisons the target(s) in a ball of magical energy. can be broken, but only from the outside
~~Doom: Final Fantasy style Doom
~~chains: also self-explanatory. Similar to aetherial gaols in purpose, but can be broken if the target struggles hard enough.
~~Black Cauldron: a massive darkness-based attack. In canon, this is strong enough to one-shot the entire party.
Additionally to all of the above we also see Emet-Selch recreate an entire city and simulacra of (some of) its inhabitants. While this is explicitly referred to as a "glamour" (the term canon uses for something like an illusion), the fact that he was capable of doing so without any outside assistance and without apparently breaking much of a sweat speaks to the sheer level of power he's on. More so when even his own people are mentioned to sometimes have needed to pool their magical abilities for larger scale works. While he prefers to not fight, doom will not have any affect on player characters and Black Cauldron will similarly be unable to one-shot characters. His illusions will additionally only be able to encompass an area similar to a mid-sized room.
~Denizen of the Underworld
Though Emet-Selch is not literally an inhabitant of the Underworld (despite the very apropos parallels with regards to his true name), he is capable of seeing the aether - the energy that exists within all living things and allows for magic to be cast - that suffuses the world itself, and the currents it makes as it crosses the world. In fact, his sight is so keen that he can pick out not just the souls of any given being but also the individual colors of same. He is also capable of reaching into the aetherial stream - sometimes also referred to as the Lifestream - and pulling out a soul, provided it still retains its shape instead of having dissipated into the aetherial sea. While he will still have this ability in game, reaching into the Lifestream will require that there be a Lifestream to reach into in the first place.
~Tempered by Zodiark
While not an ability in the strictest sense of the word, nor anything that grants him any sort of new powers, Emet-Selch has been "tempered" by the quasi-deiform being known as Zodiark. This means that, in addition to his own aether being brought closer to elemental alignment with the element of Zodiark's aether - in this case, Darkness - he has also been bound to Zodiark's will and the desire that first brought Zodiark into existence. Likewise, the fact that his very aether has become aspected to Darkness means that he finds places with high amounts of the opposing element - Light - to be distinctly unpleasant to remain in.
~Planning/Strategy
Moving on into the realm of purely physical abilities, Emet-Selch is both a brilliant tactician and excellent planner, frequently thinking several steps ahead and having plans for several contingencies, just in case his initial plans either fall to come to fruition or otherwise don't quite work out as intended. Having the advantage of an immortal's lifespan and several thousand years to get really good at it helps, but it's notable that his plan - of all the ones thrown at the player character by the various antagonists of the game - is one of the ones that comes closest to succeeding.
~Builder of Empires
Every immortal needs a hobby (or two, or three...) and empire building is Emet-Selch's most notable one. Very literally so, in fact. He masterminded the creation of the main antagonistic empire of the game inside of a single human lifespan, and under his rule as Emperor, the empire sees an almost meteoric rise to power besides, until it's very nearly the equal of any of the other major powers of that world. And just in case that alone wasn't enough, he admits to having had a hand in not just the other (long since vanished) empire of that selfsame world, but "various other imperially-inclined nations besides" and one of his fellows Ascians later directly comments that he had a "penchant for nation-building". As such, it can be presumed that he has at least a fairly thorough grasp of not just military tactics and strategy as mentioned above, but also any of the various bits and pieces that go into ruling a highly-militaristic empire - and ruling it well, by most accounts - for some 60-odd years.
SAMPLE
In space, no one can hear you scream / I get the feeling this isn't Kansas anymore, Toto
PERMISSIONS
Let us cast off titles and pretense, and show our true faces to one another