Order of the Empire/meta

Meta explanation for the Knights Imperial: ,
The "Knights Imperial" was a placeholder name in the article drafts that didn't get replaced by something cooler.
When asked about it after publication, I came up with this:

Knightly Orders (Imperial) [Addendum - *Unreviewed*]

There are, and have been, many Orders of Knighthood within the Third Imperium. Most Orders are limited in their membership in one way or another, either having a chartered limit on their living membership, or being able to appoint members from limited pools or for very specific deeds. A few Orders, including a few of the most well known, are limited because they have specific roles within the Imperium and there are only so many spots to fill. There is also a relative handful of Orders with no official limits on membership. Whether they represent a general population of Knights compared to the perceived elites of the limited Orders, or whether they are trusted to exist in larger numbers than the secretive specialists is dependent on which expert you ask, what era of the Imperium you are asking about, and how much news exposure a given Order had received recently. A comprehensive list of the Specialist Orders is impossible, though many are cross-referenced in other places.

Three of the Unlimited Orders, colloquially referred to as "Knights Ordinary" by some, are noteworthy for their shared histories.

The Orders of the "Knights Ordinary" include:

• Order of the Third Imperium
• Order of the Knights Imperial
• Order of the Empire

Founded as the Order of the Third Imperium (OTI) by Cleon I as a counterpoint to the Order of the Emperor's Guard (OEG). Originally intended to be used as the Knights Resident on worlds added to the early Imperium, as the exploration and annexation advanced that role would eventually be taken over in many long-annexed regions by the OEG. The frontiers were dominated by newly minted Knights of the OTI, or simply "Knights of the Third Imperium", and some regions retained that balance well past the Civil War. The OTI split twice in its history. The first split occurred by an accident of language, while the second was more considered.

During the grinding conquests of the rimward half of the Imperium, the story goes, the founding of the Knights Imperial came on a world with a linguistic history that included the so-called Romance languages of old Terra. While awarding a number of local heroes with Imperial Knighthood, the translation for the local populace's newscasts rendered their titles as "Chevalier Emperialle". Through what was undoubtedly a comedy of diplomatic correctness, the name, rendered as "Knights Imperial", made its way into the communiques back to Capital. The Emperor decided to honor the linguistic lapse, and gracefully accepted his role as the "Grand Master" of yet another Order. Despite this, the Knights Imperial and the Knights of the Third Imperium present in the rimward campaigns considered themselves to be brothers in the same Order for years after, only officially splitting when Capital confirmed the Emperor's actions.

The Order of the Empire

The creation of the Order of the Empire came about during the Civil War, though which of the Barracks Emperors was responsible for making it official is not known with certainty. The revolving door of short-lived Emperors strained the loyalties of many of the nobility, which included many Knights. It became a point of dark humor among the OTI near Capital that they served "the Empire", often to their cost only a few months later. It is not known which of the Barracks Emperors heard of this, but a group of Knights who had served under one of them was unwisely defiant before the next one and executed en masse. Not wishing to dishonor such loyalty or stain the Orders from which they had emerged, the new Emperor published their death notices with the note "Knight of the Empire", which very quickly became a standard practice of subsequent Barracks Emperors. Arbellatra, when presented with the option, allowed those who would have received such a notice to live, but made them the first living members of the Order of the Empire. Coincidentally, all had been OTI. Arbellatra did not allow the new Order to bear the implied dishonor of their creation, granting all honors in public. Only the oldest records of the Order of the Empire tell the truth, and only to those the Master of the Order considers worthy.

The three Orders consider themselves of equal precedence, and the majority of Imperial Heralds agree. There are no chartered limits on the membership of the three Orders either individually or in aggregate, and they are not, as a rule, geographically concentrated by the 1100s. The criteria that Nobles or the Emperor use to assign one of these Orders over the others to an individual Knight is unknown and may in fact not be to any plan.

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