Squidman Empire

"Squnty Kalar"

- on the Squidman Empire.

About
The Squidman Empire (イカマン帝国, ikaman teikoku) is one of the three great Squidman nations of The Continent formed after squidmen became recognized as the fourth incarnation of the Protagonist Race roughly 50,000 years after the LP Era.

Built from the ruins of Lang Bau, the capital of the Helman Republic, with the assistance of the legendary black-skinned squidman Kalar Squnty, the Squidman Empire controls the northern corner of the Continent. It is a modern civilization with paved roads and highways that is well-guarded against Monster attacks and maintains good relations with the neighboring nations of the Hanpen Republic and the Ka-ka-ka Kingdom, allowing it to exist without conflict in a state of relative peace. Humans, which are now classified as a species of monster, have largely been stripped of their society and culture, but have managed to form small isolated settlements away from the squidman territories with Squnty's aid. Despite humans otherwise being feared as the enemies of squidmankind, one ancient human, Oama Motohide, is celebrated for his predicting the rise of squidmen as the protagonist race millennia before it occurred, and a large golden statue in his image stands at the center of the imperial capital in tribute to him. The mutated human Pigu Geliciam, one of Motohide's creations, has also formed an independent nation of her own consisting entirely of thousands of her subdivided clones, and seems to be recognized as a separate species from humanity.

In the "Squidman Empire" ending route of Rance X, the warrior Rance, along with his companions Sill Plain, Kentou Kanami and the Dark Lord Satella, travels to the Squidman Empire after being unthawed by the squidman explorer Yakki Squid from a cryogenic chamber within the crashed Horus colony F-3Q45 mothership he had been trapped inside of for 50,000 years. Angered and confused by a reality where squidmen had overrun humanity as the Continent's dominant species, Rance immediately begins causing trouble in the empire's capital before being driven out by Squnty, who informs him of the fate of the world following his disappearance and gives his party a map leading to the nearest human colony. Rance returns to the capital a few months later having rallied together the remnants of humanity and declares total war on squidmen everywhere. Soon afterward, an army of Pigus also appear on the scene and begin an invasion of their own, raising the curtain on a new era of conflict between man, squid and Pigu.

As the "Squidman Empire" ending occurs in an alternate timeline where Rance was not present to lead humanity in defeating the Monster Realm during the 2nd Dark Lord War, a pivotal event that drastically altered the course of history on the Continent, it is unclear if squidmen are still fated to become the next protagonist race or if humanity's victory in the 2nd Dark Lord War prevented this eventual future from ever happening.

Trivia

 * According to TADA, the director of the Rance Series, the basic idea of squidmen succeeding humanity as the apex species of the planet is derived from the documentary series The Future is Wild, which speculates the evolutionary paths of various species on Earth if humans were to face sudden extinction. In the series, the evolutionary descendant of the squid is named as the most likely candidate to eventually reestablish civilization.


 * During a Twitter Q&A, Orion, the Rance series' lead artist, revealed that there is no Demon King by the time of the Squidman Empire's existence, and suggested the possibility that the Devil King Rathowm had succeeded in accomplishing his goal of overthrowing Ludo-Rathowm as the Creator God of the Continent during the 50,000 year period between its creation and the end of the Rance series.
 * A takoyaki stand can be seen off the side of the road in the Squidman-controlled Lang Bau. As takoyaki is most commonly prepared using octopus, it is likely that squidmen living in the age of the Squidman Empire freely consume Octomen, which once served as the bitter enemies of their ancestors.
 * It was implied that Both Kayblis and Hornet are also dead by this time, most likely having fallen to Angel Knights when humanity was wiped out.