Galactic empire

Most of these galaxy-spanning domains depend on some form of transportation capable of quickly or instantly crossing vast cosmic distances, usually measured in light-years, many times faster than familiar particles such as photons traveling at light speed.

This may come about as a result of propaganda exaggerating the spread of an imperial entity in order to appear stronger than is actually the case — just as historical nation-states such as the 'Holy Roman Empire' presented themselves; being roughly twice the size of modern Germany.

As a military dictatorship based upon fear and terror, the Empire is an explicitly villainous force with linguistic and visual traits directly reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

For example, their armored forces known as "stormtroopers" are named analogously to the Sturmabteilung (often known as the SA), a paramilitary entity created by the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) in 1920.

Much of the plot of the Foundation series, authored by Isaac Asimov, revolves around who can best and most quickly revive the fallen galactic empire; it is taken for granted that this is a positive and worthy aim.

In writer Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series, members of the empire often work to maintain the best interests of humanity despite efforts by violent political extremists to pursue their own ends.

Asimov's Earth – like the historical Judea – is sharply polarized between those who accept the Imperial authority and the fanatic "Zealots" who hatch violent plots of bloody rebellion and are the book's clear villains.

Writer Poul Anderson makes the point that the declining empire depicted in his Dominic Flandry series does not span the entire galaxy but only a fraction of one of its spiral arms.

Another notable example of a galactic empire is the Imperium of Man from the Warhammer 40,000 universe, which is a feudal theocratic industrial and militaristic totalitarian regime (nominally an absolute monarchy) that does in fact span almost the entirety of the Milky Way Galaxy.

In the final arc of the Sailor Moon manga series by Naoko Takeuchi, a fictional organization called Shadow Galactica has established an empire all over the Milky Way.

Its members come from different Star Systems and Sailor Galaxia, the self-proclaimed "Golden Queen of Shadow Galactica", has built her palace around the Galaxy Cauldron, the birthplace of all life in the Milky Way located in Galactic Center.

Author Orson Scott Card's "Starways Congress", an organization featured in the work Speaker for the Dead (the follow-up to Ender's Game), similarly relies on the ansible.