You sigh. You miss your old matesprit. It has been millennia since he died, a blueblood. You have pretended to be many things to stay alive this long. When the first empress rose to power, you pretended to be an old rustblood to keep her from drafting you. It was the first planet-wide rule alternia had seen, before that having been ruled by many small clans, and at that time all, yourself included, thought that it would die out. But she drafted millions, and her first descendant was named her successor should she be killed. She was, and he took her place. Oh, how you wished the empire had never grown, had never become a matriarchy. It took a long, long, long time before the empire grew at all, seeing another emperor, and two empresses before another planet was colonized and then conquered. After some time, an empress declared that only females could rule, for fear of losing the throne to her male descendant, who would have dissolved the empire slowly, by letting conquered planets go and never trying to hard to keep the planet united. Perhaps a planetary government is best for alternia, but not this one. A downward spiral of oppression and hate, arbitrary rules made to support the caste system, a terrible place to live. You stayed hidden, being a rust, or a blueblood, or whatever else struck your fancy. An old tyrian man like you would not last ten sweeps following the ban of emperors.
