I don't make the rules

Mexicas. There was no Aztec Empire.

Plebs are obsessed with empires.

Level up and start being interested in ideologies, mythologies, languages and in larger terms, cultures.

I agree.... I'm obsessed with certain native tribes cultures. It's probably because our culture sucks and we are unconsciously searching for a better way
- I wouldn't say I agree 100% with McKenna, but he was a genius.
  Terence McKenna Explains his Most Fundamental Concept “The Archaic Revival”
  I won't start writing my own version, I'd end up hitting the char limit. But I used to enjoy listening to him a lot. Still do sometimes.
  Edit listening to this clip note that this is like a taped speech from the 90's and McKenna is literally discussing memes. Back then it was just the scientific concept, not the cultural thing internet knows it as. But still. It's around 10min

(Source, btw.)

Unfortunately, quite a few guys end up obsessed with that one.
Does it even count as an empire? He had what, 5-6 years occupying parts of Europe?
- I would say yes, just a very short-lived one. I'd struggle to come up with a definition of an empire that excluded Nazi Germany short of just arbitrarily imposing a minimum required lifespan. It was definitely a large, powerful, expansionist state that conquered other areas in order to subjugate them for the benefit of a metropole. The Reichskommisariats were basically intended as colonial administrations, not to mention client states like Slovakia
- parts of Europe
  Quite big parts
- Does Napoleon and his realm count as empire for you? Or Alexander the Great?

Do science fiction empires count? Because I got imperium of man

Yes, but unfortunately the credits won't transfer out.
- Sweet. Terran Empire it is. Everyone gets a goatee! I'm not a guy though so it may not count :(
Unofficial ruling:
Yes, they count.
if so, and we also include mangas, I am a one piece historian (and also a member of library of ohara)
(i accidentally wrote magas instead of mangas, but i am still leaving it here in brackets, because someone actually made a joke of it which gave me a slight chuckle, so do not want to ruin that)
- also include magas
  History is today!

I'm glad I got included as the orange speech bubble.

Today is Chicome Coatl (7 Snake) in the Tonalpohualli. Party on nerds.

The Nobunaga and Tokugawa Shogunates.

And I'm not even a weeb. I only like, like, 6 animes. 😌

Is one of them Intrigue in the Bakumatsu?
Did you count pokemon?
Is one of them Boku no Pico? 😉
- now great, what will google think of me 🙄
That's how it starts

Thank goodness I'm too old to give a incan shit about this.

Sumerians. Cuneiform. Suck it everyone who came after.

Homer? Try the Epic of Gilgamesh, you posers!

Allow me to once again recommend The Fall of Civilizations Podcast. It's excellent.

I got the Grateful Dead as a freshman in uni and have stuck with that.

I think they're just supposed to be interests, not religions.
- Caliphates still count.

Wait... You're only supposed to get one? Do I return the others somehow? Is there any support email or phone I can contact?

If I pick the same country every time I play Civ, can I test out of this course?

That wow looks like it's coming out of that butt

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire

Ah. The Persian empire then.
- Well, one of several
The most amazing empire.
Well, that one or the Inca empire.

Mongol guy's font change has been living in my head all afternoon. Why is it only him? Why does getting the Mongol empire make him start speaking in a Charles-Rennie-Mackintosh-looking font? Like, the artist obviously likes to play it loose with typefaces in the rest of the comic too, but this one guy seems like the centre of the typographical attention and I do not understand the choices made

He was so excited about his pick that he BECAME part of the Department

i got the martians. it's a future empire, does that still count?

Do the Etruscans count?

I was assigned The Scythians late in life

i was assigned Ancient Egypt pretty early on, i made my mum read to me things like the process of mummification for bedtime stories

Same here. By around 3rd grade I had taught myself how to phonetically read/write hieroglyphs. So I would write all sorts of English stuff in hieroglyphs, but I still couldn't actually understand ancient Egyptian.
- somehow my brain did a flip and i did the same but with nordic runes (elder futhark to be exact). now i'm catching up and trying to learn some ancient egyptian in my free time

Mughals are pretty cool, Mongol guy is right

Genghis Kahn did nothing wrong, he did it all for Börte.
- one could make an argument that mughal empire is mongol empire, in the same sense that byzantine is roman (but not really)
  babar, first (almost undisputed) ruler of mughal empire was descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan.
They gave us Biryani!

Only since the last season of Cosmos got me obsessed with the Indus Valley Civilization. I'm over 40.

This is arguably more of a Sumer question, but how do you feel about the theory that the Indus Valley Civilisation can be identified as the Meluhha that the early Mesopotamians traded with?
- I'm optimistic about it. It seems likely given the types of minerals found in Mesopotamian artifacts can be traced to mines near the Indus.

Does the Byzantine Empire count or do we kind of file that under Rome?

I think you get to make that call.
It has its own Wikipedia page, so it checks out.
- What about the Holy Roman empire of German Nation?
1,000,000% counts and is not the same thing as the Roman Empire.
- I'd argue it is the same thing, it's just that the Roman Empire lasted so long and it was changing the whole time, so it's often necessary to compartmentalise it to a degree