Don't be too sure that everyone who is in the Empire actually *likes* the Empire. Or wants to be in the Empire. Or even cares about the Empire at all. I would venture to say that a very significant number of people in the Empire are in it ether because their ruler decided to be part of it, or they did it simply to avoid destruction of their realm.
Exactly! And the same holds true for the reverse. A very significant number of people in the Free Realms didn't know or care about the Empire at all and hold no opinion on the "Empire model", but just happened to be in the realms whose rulers chose to fight against the Empire.
My personal feeling is that an overall Empire model for FEI, assuming that Arcaea manages to establish an actual island-spanning Empire and make it stick, will be disastrous.
Honestly, if it all goes to !@#$, I'll just say, "Right, everyone drop relations to neutral and let's go back to the way things were".
