At the height of its rule, the Galactic Empire reigned over a number of Star Wars themed games in online multiplayer gaming. At the forefront of those games were those of LucasArts' Jedi Knight series. During the late 1990s, various imperial-themed guilds and associations roamed a more free and, in many cases, a likewise more adverse online environment; an environment made prone to adversity by the near absence of privatization. On the MSN Gaming Zone, the central hub of all online multiplayer gaming activity of the time, game sections were divided into lobbies, and those lobbies were subdivided into a finite number of game rooms or private lobbies. This lack of privatization was an invitation to elitists, aspiring authoritarians, and self-proclaimed dictators, whose lust for command and control of large numbers of disaffected and vulnerable youth was a focal incentive in the formation of guilds and associations, colloquially referred to as clans. The more established of these despotic elements successfully aggregated players into organized communities, where members were meticulously bound to one another, made not to question the motives of their self-appointed superiors for fear of losing other members' approval.

The adversity of the online environment during this time sparked a rebellion among some of the players. In 1999 Darchind, who led an imperial-themed group called the Dark Empire, emerged in the Trial Version lobby of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. After successfully sabotaging The Empire and the Avatar Empire, two of the most notorious imperial-themed guilds of the time, Darchind's group absorbed what remained of those factions. The Galactic Empire, inspired by the imperial movement of Star Wars canon, was born.