This one's for you, C-chan, since it's all your fault. I hope you don't mind oblique mentions of torture. This is a far-future Star Trek reincarnation fic where the Amis are Romulans. ...Yeah. For those of you not into Star Trek, the Romulan Star Empire is one of the three great galactic powers in Trek. The Romulans are a closely related species to Vulcans (the pointy-eared, green-blooded, logic-loving people that gave us Spock). The Vulcans turned to logic when they almost destroyed their planet through warfare because theirs is a species of super-strong contact telepaths with extremely strong emotions; the Romulans left around that time, and instead of turning to logic created a culture based on honor, loyalty, a superiority complex, and subjugating others. The Tal Shiar is the secret police that helps keep the populace in check; the Praetor and the Senate are the oligarchical powers in control of the Romulan Star Empire. I think that's a pretty good summation.
Also, I first saw the idea of Grantaire as a spy infiltrating the Amis from Vee and TC. I think this ended up being pretty different from what they did (very different, eventually), but they still get credit for giving me this mental track to follow.
As mentioned above, there is torture below the cut, though I don't do anything graphically.
( Wandering Souls )