Eternal Empire

A technologically advanced autocracy built upon Zakuul, empowered by the ancient Eternal Fleet, and briefly strong enough to force both the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire into submission.

Overview

The Eternal Empire was a Zakuulan galactic power centered upon the rule of Valkorion, the Immortal Emperor. Over centuries, Valkorion transformed the isolated civilization of Zakuul into a wealthy and technologically sophisticated society whose political identity, military strength, and public mythology revolved around the Eternal Throne. To many Zakuulans, he was not simply a ruler, but the timeless architect and protector of their civilization.

Life within Valkorion's golden age could be extraordinarily comfortable. Droid labor performed much of the work necessary to sustain the Spire, citizens received regular stipends of credits and essential resources, and much of the population was free to pursue education, science, art, philosophy, entertainment, and personal interests. At the same time, political and military authority rested overwhelmingly with the sovereign, while the Knights of Zakuul enforced an order built around loyalty to Valkorion and his dynasty.

Zakuul's prosperity also had costs that were easier for its citizens to overlook. Valkorion drew wealth from the Sith Empire while developing Zakuul, and the later Eternal Empire extracted tribute and resources from conquered worlds. Beneath the prosperity of the Spire were Oldtown and Breaktown, communities that revealed debt, crime, dissidence, exclusion, and rejection of the Eternal Throne beneath the image of a perfectly ordered society.

The Eternal Empire became the dominant galactic power when the Eternal Fleet struck the Republic and Sith Empire simultaneously, targeting shipyards and supply lines before blockading Coruscant and Dromund Kaas. Within months, both powers had been strategically defeated and were ultimately forced to pay tribute to Zakuul. They survived as states, but neither could openly challenge Arcann's supremacy.

That supremacy proved temporary. Valkorion was succeeded by Arcann and later Vaylin, while resistance grew among conquered populations, defectors, dissident Zakuulans, former Republic and Imperial personnel, and the Alliance assembled against the Eternal Empire. The dynasty eventually fell, the Alliance seized the Eternal Throne and surviving Zakuulan assets, and the Eternal Empire ceased to exist as the ruling galactic power.

For roleplay, the Eternal Empire is therefore best understood as both a historical faction and a living legacy. In current StarForgeRP continuity, characters are more likely to encounter former Knights, veterans, dissidents, occupation personnel, refugees, hardliners, former Alliance recruits, surviving droids, abandoned installations, Zakuulan technology, or communities still dealing with the consequences of the conquest than representatives of a functioning Eternal imperial government.

Quick Reference

Capital: Zakuul, centered upon the Spire
Seat of Imperial Power: Eternal Throne
Government: Totalitarian autocracy centered upon the Eternal sovereign
Historical Sovereigns: Valkorion, Arcann, Vaylin
Force Traditions: Knights of Zakuul; Scions of Zakuul
Major Military Assets: Eternal Fleet, Skytroopers, Knights of Zakuul, organic military personnel, Star Fortresses, Exarchs
Territory at Its Height: Zakuul and numerous conquered, occupied, tributary, or vassal worlds
Primary Historical Enemies: Galactic Republic, Sith Empire, Alliance against Zakuul
Current Status: Fallen as a galactic empire; Zakuul survives as an independent world
Current StarForgeRP Continuity: Approximately 3621 BBY, incorporating established SWTOR story material through Game Update 7.9: Legacy Reborn

The Eternal Empire and Zakuul are not interchangeable. The imperial regime has fallen; Zakuul, its people, and elements of its culture and institutions continue to exist.

Origins & Imperial Authority

Valkorion's Zakuul

Before Valkorion's rise, Zakuul was an isolated civilization in Wild Space whose peoples lived in tribal societies shaped by the harsh environment of the Endless Swamps and religious traditions later remembered as the Old Ways. Valkorion united these peoples, presented himself as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, and gradually reshaped Zakuulan civilization around himself.

The ruler Zakuul knew as Valkorion was another identity of the ancient Force-user known elsewhere as Vitiate, the Sith Emperor. His connection to the Sith Empire was concealed from ordinary Zakuulans, however, and Zakuul was not simply another province or renamed version of the Sith state. It developed its own political identity, architecture, military traditions, Force orders, mythology, and social institutions.

This distinction matters for roleplay. A Zakuulan citizen ordinarily understood themselves as Zakuulan, not as an Imperial subject secretly belonging to the Sith Empire. Likewise, a Knight of Zakuul was not a Sith operating under another title simply because Valkorion and the Sith Emperor were the same being.

The Eternal Sovereign

The Eternal Empire concentrated political and military authority in its sovereign. Under Valkorion, centuries of prosperity reinforced this system: citizens were encouraged to trust the Immortal Emperor with matters of government and war while they devoted themselves to the cultural, intellectual, and personal opportunities his society provided. Official SWTOR material explicitly describes the Eternal Empire as a totalitarian dictatorship despite the extraordinary material comfort enjoyed by much of its population.

Loyalty to Zakuul, loyalty to the state, and loyalty to Valkorion were consequently difficult to separate. This became one of the regime's greatest weaknesses after his fall. Arcann and Vaylin inherited the machinery of imperial rule, but not the centuries of stability and reverence that had sustained their father.

The Eternal Throne

The Eternal Throne was both the symbolic center of the regime and a functional command system. After using the visions of the Scions to locate the dormant Eternal Fleet, Valkorion constructed the Throne as the means by which the ancient armada could be reactivated and commanded. Control of the throne therefore meant control of the military asset that made Zakuul capable of dominating the galaxy.

For roleplay, succession to the Eternal Throne should not be treated like possession of an ordinary crown. During the Empire's height, political legitimacy and command of the Eternal Fleet were directly intertwined.

The Royal Family

Valkorion's dynasty stood at the center of imperial life. Senya Tirall, once a Knight of Zakuul, was the mother of his three children: the twin princes Thexan and Arcann, and their younger sister Vaylin. Thexan and Arcann became celebrated military figures during Zakuul's expansion, while Vaylin eventually served as High Justice before claiming the Eternal Throne herself.

The game does not establish an elaborate constitutional law of succession. Thexan was regarded by Zakuulans as the natural successor to the Throne, but the transitions actually depicted during the Empire's final years were decided by family conflict, political control, and force. StarForgeRP should therefore avoid inventing detailed hereditary laws, noble houses, succession councils, or governmental offices unless they are explicitly identified as community-created material.

Society & Political Culture

Prosperity, Stipends & Automation

Mainstream Zakuulan life differed sharply from conditions across much of the war-torn galaxy. Citizens received regular stipends of credits along with resources such as food and fuel, while advanced droids performed much of the labor necessary to maintain society. The Spire's Overwatch system coordinated a vast portion of this automated infrastructure.

This freed many Zakuulans from the economic pressures common elsewhere and encouraged lives centered upon education, science, art, philosophy, recreation, and personal fulfillment. SWTOR describes the average Zakuulan as living at a level of material comfort comparable to the galactic upper class.

That abundance did not exist independently of imperial power. Valkorion had diverted wealth from his Sith Empire while building Zakuul, and the later empire used its Fleet to collect tribute and resources from conquered worlds. At the height of Zakuulan dominance, enormous wealth was directed toward the Spire, military expansion, and the maintenance of its citizens' standard of living.

Class, Status & the Margins

Zakuulan society was deliberately designed to be classless. Even so, informal distinctions of status emerged within the Spire. Residents of districts physically closer to the Eternal Throne sometimes treated that proximity as a mark of prestige, while lower districts were looked down upon despite officially comparable living conditions.

Below the respectable districts lay Oldtown, where Spire residents pursued controlled danger, gambling, vice, and forbidden entertainment. Beneath it was Breaktown, a more dangerous refuge for debtors, criminals, outcasts, dissidents, and others who had rejected or escaped the authority of the Eternal Throne.

These divisions provide much broader character possibilities than the stereotype of the pampered Zakuulan citizen. A character may have prospered within the Spire, chased forbidden thrills in Oldtown, fallen into debt or disgrace, grown up in Breaktown, lived beyond the city in the swamps, served the state, or opposed the Throne long before resistance became respectable.

Population & Belonging

Zakuul's population was primarily Human, but SWTOR notes that aliens were increasingly welcomed into the growing Eternal Empire. The game does not provide a detailed system of citizenship, naturalization, or legal status for conquered populations, so those subjects should not automatically be treated as documented fact.

For roleplay, this leaves room for alien Zakuulan characters and families with connections to the Empire without implying that every conquered person became a Zakuulan citizen. A useful character question is not simply where someone was born, but whether they considered themselves part of Zakuulan civilization, an imperial subject, a conquered outsider, or something between those categories.

Zakuulan Exceptionalism

Valkorion's golden age encouraged a strong belief in Zakuulan exceptionalism. Official material describes Zakuulans as idealistic people who looked upon the Republic and Sith Empire with contempt for their apparently endless warfare and believed their own civilization had achieved something superior. Some even considered it Zakuul's responsibility to bring that enlightenment to the rest of the galaxy.

That outlook does not require every Zakuulan character to be arrogant or expansionist. One person might remain proud of Zakuulan science and social institutions while rejecting conquest. Another might sincerely believe the invasion was meant to impose order on a violent galaxy. A veteran may struggle with guilt after seeing what occupation meant to other worlds, while a younger Zakuulan may resent being judged for a regime they never personally served.

The Force & Zakuulan Traditions

Knights of Zakuul

The Knights of Zakuul developed from older Force-sensitive leadership roles among Zakuul's tribal peoples. After unifying the planet, Valkorion repurposed those traditions into an order presented publicly as the protector of Zakuulan society. Knights hunted corruption and defended the Empire, but they were also enforcers of the sovereign's will and were taught extraordinary devotion to Valkorion and his family.

Their approach to the Force differed substantially from the doctrines of both Jedi and Sith. Knights were encouraged to explore the Force without treating its different aspects through precisely the same prohibitions or categories used by those traditions. Individual Knights developed personal relationships with the Force and were encouraged to share what they discovered with their order.

This does not make the Knights simply "gray Jedi." Their tradition developed independently of the Jedi Order, within Zakuulan culture, and became institutionally tied to service of an authoritarian ruler.

For a former Knight, the collapse of the Eternal Empire can therefore create an especially strong identity crisis. Does protecting Zakuul require obedience to whoever occupies the Throne? Can service to the people take precedence over service to the sovereign? Which parts of the Knight tradition remain meaningful once Valkorion's political mythology is rejected?

Scions of Zakuul

The Scions were a subgroup of the Knights whose Force abilities allowed them to glimpse the future. They placed exceptional trust in fate and prophecy, and Valkorion made use of their visions—including during his search for the dormant Eternal Fleet.

Arcann despised the Scions and ordered a mass slaughter shortly after becoming Emperor. The purge fractured the Knights, drove some members away from the order, and forced surviving Scions into hiding. By later events, repeated violence had reduced the tradition to a small and vulnerable remnant.

The Old Ways

Before Valkorion, ancient Zakuulans worshipped a pantheon of feared deities associated with suffering, fate, destruction, and survival. Valkorion presented himself as the prophesied figure who had surpassed that old order and delivered Zakuul into a new age.

The Old Ways did not disappear entirely. Their gods, stories, symbols, and prophecies remained part of Zakuulan cultural memory, while fringe groups such as the Heralds of Zildrog continued to treat parts of the old mythology as living belief.

These traditions are better treated as one part of Zakuulan cultural history than as the universal religion of every Eternal Empire character. A Spire-raised citizen might regard them primarily as mythology, while a traditionalist, exile, cultist, historian, or Breaktown resident could assign them far greater significance.

Military & Galactic Rule

The Eternal Fleet

The Eternal Fleet was the foundation of Zakuul's galactic supremacy, but it was not created by Zakuul. The armada was an ancient technological legacy associated with Iokath, operated through GEMINI droid captains. Valkorion located the dormant fleet with the aid of Scion visions and constructed the Eternal Throne as the means to reactivate and command it.

Its enormous numbers, synchronization, automation, and combat effectiveness allowed Zakuul to overwhelm conventional fleets. The Fleet was also used to collect resources and tribute from conquered worlds and protect Wild Space trade routes, making it an instrument of economic and political control as well as warfare.

Droids & Organic Forces

Automation extended throughout the Eternal Empire's military. Skytroopers became the most recognizable symbol of Zakuulan occupation, while specialized droid systems allowed enormous vessels and installations to operate with comparatively small organic crews. SWTOR specifically notes that Zakuul did not possess enough loyal citizens to crew its thousands of warships and Star Fortresses conventionally.

The Eternal Empire was not an exclusively droid military. Knights, soldiers, officers, pilots, technicians, commanders, security personnel, and other organic forces served beside its machines. After the Empire's fall, SWTOR describes millions of Zakuulan armed personnel as suddenly left without an empire to defend, with some Knights and reprogrammed Skytroopers subsequently entering Alliance service.

Star Fortresses & Exarchs

Following the conquest, Arcann deployed Star Fortresses above strategically important worlds. These immense orbital battle stations used Sun Generators whose power could be directed against the planets below, allowing the threat of catastrophic retaliation to hold populations hostage and discourage resistance.

Project Exarch selected especially loyal Knights for extensive biological and cybernetic enhancement. Those who survived became Exarchs and were placed in command of Star Fortresses, effectively giving them extraordinary authority over the worlds beneath their stations.

Tribute, Vassals & Occupation

Eternal rule did not look identical everywhere. The Republic and Sith Empire remained functioning governments but were forced to acknowledge Zakuulan supremacy and pay tribute. Other worlds came under more direct occupation, while planets such as Darvannis were incorporated into Zakuul's military-industrial system.

For roleplay, this means a former subject world does not need to reproduce the experience of every other occupied planet. One population may remember a Star Fortress and direct military intimidation. Another may chiefly remember tribute quotas, confiscated resources, altered trade, local collaborators, military restrictions, shortages, refugee movements, or the constant knowledge that open resistance could bring overwhelming retaliation.

Rise & Fall of the Eternal Empire

The Galactic Conquest

Zakuul's emergence overturned the existing balance of power. The Eternal Fleet attacked Republic and Imperial infrastructure simultaneously, targeting shipyards and supply lines before blockading Coruscant and Dromund Kaas. The campaigns of Princes Thexan and Arcann made them celebrated figures on Zakuul, while neither of the galaxy's established great powers proved able to halt the advance.

The Republic and Sith Empire were defeated rather than erased. Their governments, militaries, and territories continued in diminished form, but both were compelled to pay tribute and accept a political order in which Zakuul stood above them. Their own rivalry survived beneath that imposed peace.

Arcann's Reign

After Valkorion's fall, Arcann claimed the Eternal Throne. His government retained the machinery of power created by his father but increasingly depended upon fear, punishment, and coercion. His massacre of the Scions created a schism within the Knights, while Star Fortresses and Exarchs strengthened his grip upon conquered worlds.

Arcann's reign is particularly useful for characters whose loyalties began to fracture. A Knight might have worshipped Valkorion while considering Arcann unworthy of the Throne. A soldier might remain loyal to Zakuul while questioning imperial policy. A citizen could view rebellion as treason—or finally conclude that loyalty to the sovereign was destroying the civilization it was supposed to protect.

Vaylin's Reign

After Arcann's defeat, Vaylin seized the Eternal Throne and became Empress. Her rule intensified the instability already spreading through Zakuul. Resistance cells expanded, some Knights questioned their loyalty to the Throne, and imperial violence increasingly focused not only upon foreign enemies but upon perceived betrayal within Zakuulan society itself.

The Alliance eventually defeated Vaylin and seized control of the Eternal Throne. Valkorion's final attempt to restore himself through the Alliance Commander also failed, ending the dynasty that had shaped Zakuul for centuries and bringing the Eternal Empire's period of galactic domination to a close.

The Eternal Alliance & Nathema

After the imperial regime collapsed, many surviving Zakuulan military assets and personnel passed into the hands of the victorious Alliance. Former Knights and reprogrammed Skytroopers served beside people who had only recently fought them, creating a new period of cooperation, resentment, and uncertainty.

That successor supremacy did not last. The Nathema crisis resulted in the near-total destruction of the Alliance's great fleet, sharply reducing its ability to dominate galactic affairs and helping create the conditions for renewed conflict between the Republic and Sith Empire.

Current State & Legacy

StarForgeRP Current Continuity: approximately 3621 BBY, incorporating established SWTOR story material through Game Update 7.9: Legacy Reborn.

At this point in StarForgeRP continuity, the Eternal Empire is no longer an active galactic state. The dynasty is gone, the Eternal Fleet no longer provides Zakuul with galactic supremacy, and post-Nathema material establishes Zakuul withdrawing from the Eternal Alliance and becoming independent.

SWTOR provides much less detail about Zakuul's later civilian government than it does about Valkorion's regime. A later Zakuulan government and the office of Consul are established, but the game's available material does not provide a comprehensive constitution, legislature, ministry system, electoral structure, or detailed modern military hierarchy. Those gaps are better left open unless StarForgeRP deliberately develops community lore to address them.

The Eternal Empire nevertheless remains highly relevant to the present setting. Its veterans still live. Former Knights retain training and beliefs shaped by Valkorion's order. Victims remember occupation. Zakuulan weapons, droids, military hardware, cultural artifacts, abandoned facilities, and salvaged technology can remain scattered across worlds once touched by the Empire.

Its political legacy is equally persistent. A Zakuulan may view the imperial period with pride, shame, nostalgia, anger, grief, or complicated combinations of all five. A former subject may distinguish between Zakuulan civilians and the regime—or refuse to make that distinction at all.

For present-day roleplay, "former Eternal Empire" is a consequential background, not a current major-faction allegiance.

Galactic Relations

Galactic Republic

The Republic endured the blockade of Coruscant, severe military losses, political humiliation, and years of tribute under Zakuulan supremacy. The restoration of Republic power does not erase those experiences. Soldiers, politicians, refugees, and communities affected by the occupation may remain deeply suspicious of Zakuulan veterans even when those individuals later opposed Arcann or served alongside the Alliance.

Sith Empire

The Sith Empire suffered a similarly devastating strategic defeat and was forced to acknowledge the superiority of a foreign imperial power. Its relationship with Zakuul carries an additional historical irony: Valkorion and the Sith Emperor were identities of the same ancient ruler, even though the societies and institutions he built around those identities remained politically and culturally distinct.

Eternal Alliance

The Alliance was created to break Zakuulan domination and later absorbed former Zakuulan personnel and technology after victory. That transition forced former enemies into close cooperation and provides fertile ground for stories involving distrust, reconciliation, guilt, rivalry, competing memories of the war, and disagreement over what should happen to captured imperial assets.

Former Subject Worlds

No single attitude can represent every world once subjected to Zakuulan rule. Some populations experienced occupation forces, Star Fortresses, executions, or military destruction. Others primarily encountered tribute demands, economic exploitation, disrupted trade, or political submission. Local continuity should reflect the circumstances of the specific world rather than treating the Eternal occupation as identical everywhere.

Roleplay Considerations

Characters connected to the Eternal Empire are most effective when their relationship with Zakuul extends beyond simply being a former enemy soldier. Consider what the imperial system meant to the character personally—and what disappeared when it fell.

Where within Zakuulan society did the character grow up: the Spire, Oldtown, Breaktown, the Endless Swamps, or somewhere else?
Did they believe Valkorion genuinely created a better civilization?
What parts of Zakuulan society do they still consider worth preserving?
How much did they understand about the cost of Zakuul's prosperity to other worlds?
Did they distinguish loyalty to Zakuul from loyalty to Valkorion, Arcann, or Vaylin?
If they served the state, were they a Knight, soldier, officer, pilot, technician, administrator, droid specialist, occupation official, or civilian worker?
Did they participate directly in the conquest or occupation of another world?
How do they respond to people who lost homes, relatives, livelihoods, resources, or political freedom under Eternal rule?
Did the Empire's collapse feel like liberation, defeat, betrayal, chaos, justice, or the destruction of everything familiar?
If Force-sensitive, what remains of their Zakuulan understanding of the Force after the fall of the Eternal Throne?
Have they joined another faction, remained connected to independent Zakuul, withdrawn from politics, or struggled to find a place in the post-imperial galaxy?
What might make them confront former comrades—or defend them?
How do they react when someone treats all Zakuulans as collectively responsible for the Empire?
What responsibility, if any, do they believe former servants of the regime owe to its victims?

Common Roleplay Hooks

A former Knight attempting to separate service to Zakuul from obedience to Valkorion's dynasty.
A Zakuulan veteran searching for purpose after the collapse of the imperial military.
A former occupation officer confronted by survivors of a world they once helped control.
A Spire citizen discovering how different conquered populations remember Zakuul's golden age.
A Breaktown resident or dissident who opposed the Eternal Throne before rebellion became safe.
A technician or salvager trying to recover, deactivate, repair, or understand abandoned Zakuulan technology.
A former Alliance recruit caught between Zakuulan identity and comrades who still remember fighting the Eternal Empire.
A hardliner who believes the Empire's fall destroyed the greatest civilization the galaxy had ever produced.
A survivor from an occupied world searching for missing records, stolen property, collaborators, or people displaced during the conquest.
A Force-sensitive character attempting to preserve elements of the Knights' tradition without restoring its imperial loyalties.
A family divided between servants of the Throne, rebels, collaborators, defectors, and civilians who simply tried to survive.
A younger Zakuulan trying to value their homeworld and culture without inheriting the expansionism of the former regime.
Former enemies forced to cooperate when abandoned Eternal Empire weapons or installations threaten both of them.

Common Misconceptions

"The Eternal Empire and Zakuul are the same thing."

Not anymore. Zakuul is a world, civilization, and people whose history predates Valkorion and continues after the fall of his dynasty. In current StarForgeRP continuity, Zakuul is independent and the Eternal Empire is a historical regime.

"The Eternal Empire was just the Sith Empire under another name."

No. Valkorion and the Sith Emperor were identities of the same being, and he secretly used resources from the Sith Empire while building Zakuul. The two societies nevertheless developed as distinct political and cultural states with different institutions, populations, military traditions, and understandings of the Force.

"Every Zakuulan lived in perfect luxury."

No. Extraordinary material abundance was a genuine feature of mainstream Zakuulan life, particularly within the Spire, but debtors, criminals, dissidents, outcasts, and people living beyond respectable society also existed. Oldtown and Breaktown make the limits of the golden-age image visible.

"The Knights of Zakuul were gray Jedi."

No. Their tradition approached the Force differently from both Jedi and Sith teachings, but it was an independent Zakuulan order rather than a neutral branch of the Jedi. Under Valkorion, the Knights were also deeply bound to his political and religious authority.

"Zakuul created the Eternal Fleet."

No. The Eternal Fleet was an ancient technological creation associated with Iokath. Valkorion located the dormant armada and used the Eternal Throne to command it, turning an older weapon into the basis of Zakuulan galactic supremacy.

"Every former Eternal Empire character should still support the dynasty."

No. SWTOR depicts Scions, Knights, soldiers, civilians, rebels, and other Zakuulans breaking with the Throne for different reasons. After the regime's collapse, nostalgia, resentment, relief, guilt, loyalty to Zakuul, hostility toward the dynasty, political apathy, and complete ideological rejection are all plausible responses.

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