The Imperial Empire

The Imperials, also known as the Imperial Empire, are a Minecraft multi-server group. They aren't tied to one server; instead they run as a loose confederation of "branches," each attached to a different Anarchy or SMP server, including 2b2t, 6b6t, 9b9t, 0b0t, and Donut SMP, among others. The name and aesthetic come from the Imperial Legion in The Elder Scrolls and from ancient Rome, and the group's leadership titles (Emperor, Centurion, Legate, etc.) are Roman-derived.

The group was founded in April 2014 by a player known as Legatus, starting out as a small group of Skyrim fans playing together on 2b2t. This date, and Legatus's role in founding the group. Since then leadership has changed hands many times, sometimes by election, sometimes by appointment, and at least once by internal takeover, while individual branches have risen, been raided into collapse, and been re-founded on new servers. The group runs its own wiki, started in September 2019, which documents its branches, leaders, wars and symbols.

2014–2018: Founding and the Old Empire

In 2014 when Legatus led a small, loosely organized group of Elder Scrolls fans on 2b2t and founded the group's first capital, Laten, which became the early members' home base. Laten was eventually found and griefed by other players, and the surviving members scattered to other bases and smaller SMP servers. Even the Imperials' own historians admit records from this period are thin, and that basic things like the founder's actual in-game name aren't really nailed down.

The group's oldest symbol, the Imperial Y, came from this period too. It's meant to look like an inverted dragon, referencing the Imperial Legion's crest, and was traditionally built at PVP outposts and bases, including after winning fights. This early stretch, retroactively called the "Old Empire," runs from the group's founding to 2018 and predates the more organized, hierarchical structure the Imperials later adopted.

In early 2015, Legatus was formally named Emperor and renamed the group "The Imperial Legion." Between 2015 and 2017, under members Lego and Titus, the group put together its first banner, a blue field with a white and red cross. During this era the Imperials also set up a branch on the anarchy server anarchy.pw. It grew quietly without much outside attention until it collapsed in the summer of 2017, when Titus's forces at spawn fell and morale among the branch's members went with it.

2018–2020: Revival and reorganization

After days of silence, the Imperials went through a revival starting in 2016 that kept building over the following years, with membership and popularity steadily growing. A second banner was introduced by Emperor MrCk10 when he came back to the group in 2018, though it got its heaviest use in 2019 and 2020 as the Imperials regained prominence. MrCk10's return also pushed the group into new servers, and an early attempt to plant a branch on 6b6t followed the same pattern as the other 2019 expansions onto 2b2t, 9b9t and 0b0t: an initial push died out by mid-2019, a second attempt fell apart that October for lack of leadership, and a December 2019 effort to fold the branch into a joint 6b6t/0b0t "Imperial Regional Government" didn't fare much better before the branch was shut down entirely by April 2020. The Imperial Dragon, which had long been used informally as the group's core emblem, was finally built as an actual in-game monument for the first time in 2020.

Much of this reorganization was driven by DavidPrydain, who served as the group's seventh and tenth Emperor and founded the Imperial Empire Wiki in September 2019. His 2020 reforms streamlined the Imperials' governance and brought back the Imperator rank. Under his leadership the group's active membership reportedly hit 217, and six independent Minecraft groups applied and were accepted into the Imperial Empire, adding roughly 90 members to the network. This era is remembered within the group as one of its most organized and expansionary periods.

2021–present: SMP expansion and the SMP Inquisition

Around 2021 the Imperials started expanding beyond Minecraft, getting a presence in other games like Rust. Within Minecraft, the group also pushed further into SMP servers, adding branches on Donut SMP, BendersMC and Lifesteal Network alongside its longer-running anarchy branches.

In March 2021, a banner originally designed by a 2019 recruit named Wyvern for his own bases, already popular among newer branches like 5b5t, was formally adopted as the group's official banner by the member Brickzebra, who's credited with the line "Why would it be a Y?" in reference to the group's older symbol. Brickzebra also set the rule that individual branches could recolor the banner's background to fit their own division while keeping the overall design.

Under Emperor Reclamationem, the eighteenth to hold the title, the Imperials founded a new anarchy branch on Constantiam and oversaw what members describe as a mass revival of the group's other anarchy branches, including 8b8t and a 6b6t branch that Brickzebra had re-established in April 2022 by merging in a small existing group called the Culprit Fighter X Army. At the time of that 2022 merger, Brickzebra was actually serving as the group's second-in-command ("Legionus") under Emperor Meldarion, not as Emperor himself. The re-established 6b6t branch's discord got hit more than once after that: once at the end of 2022, then twice more within days of each other in May 2023, before Reclamationem organized its recovery. It later weathered a 2025 conflict with a rival group called Crux, and by mid-2026 was considered the oldest continuously active clan on the server. Reclamationem also led the creation of the SMP Inquisition, a dedicated high-leadership body for the group's SMP branches, alongside the branch leader VanFon_Dood. The Inquisition oversaw the Donut SMP and BendersMC branches through a period of raids and instability, with VanFon_Dood keeping the remaining membership on both servers organized with help from other branch leaders, before eventually handing off branch leadership and stepping back from active play.

In May 2024, Reclamationem created a new SMP-specific position, "Emperor's Enforcer," specifically to bring the non-SMP leadership member Almost into the SMP Inquisition's leadership. Around the same time, the Imperials of BendersMC fought a roughly three-week war against a rival group called UCSR, considered one of the biggest conflicts in that server's history, which ended with the two sides negotiating peace. On August 1, 2024, citing his work as Emperor's Enforcer, Reclamationem promoted Almost to Praetor of both the 0b0t and BendersMC branches, making him, by the group's own account, the first member to hold a hybrid Praetor rank spanning both an SMP and an anarchy branch at once.

The Constantiam branch, one of the group's more recent additions, was founded on January 2, 2023 by Reclamationem after three earlier attempts to get an Imperial presence on that server had failed.

Organization

The Imperials are organized as a confederation of "branches," with each branch representing the group's presence on a single server, like the Imperials' 2b2t branch or the Imperials' 9b9t branch. Each branch is led by a Centurion, someone personally trusted by the Emperor, who runs the branch's day-to-day affairs.

Leadership of the group as a whole is split into two tiers. Branch Leadership helps the Centurion run an individual branch, while High Leadership (also called High Ranks) helps the Emperor run the empire as a whole; High Ranks are usually the group's longest-serving and most trusted members. Other ranks that show up across the group's history include Legate, Optio, Praetor, Imperator and Advisor, the last one generally reserved for retired leaders who keep helping the group externally or as advisors. Some branches also keep a senate-style body where members can raise proposals affecting branch policy.

The Emperor's seat itself has changed hands often over the group's history, sometimes by election, sometimes by appointment based on standing in the group, and at least once by internal takeover. Members credit the group's longevity partly to this willingness to keep reforming its leadership while keeping the Imperial name.

The Imperial Y

The oldest Imperial symbol, styled after an inverted dragon, the Imperial Y has traditionally been built at PVP outposts, bases and victory sites since the group's earliest years.

Banners

The Imperials have used three banners over their history. The first, used from 2015 to 2017 under Lego and Titus, was a blue field with a white and red cross. The second was introduced by Emperor MrCk10 in 2018 and saw its widest use in 2019 and 2020. The current banner, designed by the member Wyvern and made official in March 2021 by Brickzebra, has been adopted with recolored backgrounds by individual branches so they can reflect their own identity while keeping the shared design.

The Imperial Dragon

Long used as the group's main emblem, the Imperial Dragon wasn't actually built as an in-game structure until 2020.

Notable branches

• 2b2t – The group's original branch and the site of its founding, per the group's own account; also home to its first capital, Laten.
• anarchy.pw – Active from roughly early to late summer 2017; grew quietly with little outside attention before collapsing after its spawn defenses fell.
• Constantiam – Founded January 2, 2023 by Reclamationem after three prior failed attempts.
• Donut SMP and BendersMC – SMP branches organized under the SMP Inquisition from the early 2020s onward, including a long war on BendersMC against the rival group UCSR.
• Lifesteal Network – An SMP branch whose leadership saw an internal betrayal by a member called Dragonscar2, who left and became one of the branch's chief rivals.
• 6b6t – A branch that traces back to a 2019 expansion attempt that stalled out twice before it was re-established in April 2022 through Brickzebra's merger with the Culprit Fighter X Army. Its discord got nuked more than once, once in late 2022 and twice again within days in May 2023, before Reclamationem rebuilt it; is also home to the most known base in 6b6t, Elysium.
• 8b8t, 9b9t, 0b0t – Additional anarchy branches, several of which were founded or revived under Reclamationem's leadership.

Notable leaders and members

• Legatus – Founder of the group per its own account, and its first Emperor, ruling from 2014 to 2016; credited with building numerous early cities on 2b2t, including Laten, and originating the Imperial Y symbol.
• Lego – Second Emperor; co-introduced the group's first banner alongside Titus.
• MrCk10 – Returned to lead the group in 2018 and introduced its second banner.
• DavidPrydain – Seventh and tenth Emperor; founded the Imperial Empire Wiki in 2019 and led the 2020 reforms that reintroduced the Imperator rank and grew the group's active membership to a recorded high of 217.
• Notaufred – Rose from a 2b2t recruit to become the eleventh Emperor, credited with reviving the group during several rough periods.
• Reclamationem – Eighteenth Emperor; founded the Constantiam branch, rebuilt the 6b6t branch after a series of discord nukes in late 2022 and May 2023, led a mass revival of the group's other anarchy branches, and set up the SMP Inquisition.
• VanFon_Dood – SMP branch leader who helped found the SMP Inquisition and held the Donut SMP and BendersMC branches together through a period of raids before stepping back from leadership.
• Almost – Made Emperor's Enforcer in May 2024 to bring non-SMP leadership into the SMP Inquisition; promoted in August 2024 to Praetor of both the 0b0t and BendersMC branches, becoming the group's first "Hybrid Praetor," and later serving as Imperial Advisor for the 0b0t branch.
• BrickZebra – A French player who joined Minecraft anarchy in 2018 as part of the group Team Baguette. He folded that group into the Imperials as a French division and became 2b2t Centurion, later holding ranks including Primus Plus and Legionus (effectively second-in-command, serving under Emperor Meldarion) before eventually being appointed Emperor himself. He made the group's current banner official in March 2021, and while still serving as Legionus rather than Emperor, personally kicked off the 2022 negotiations that re-established the group's branch on 6b6t.

See also

• 2b2t
• Minecraft server
• Anarchy (video game)
• Clan (video games)