Sure! This is going to be a truncated (and late D: ) answer for now since I don't have my computer with me and am typing on mobile, so I'll probably expand on this later. But I'll give you a start!Empress Dowager Cixi was the mother of the Tongzhi Emperor (r. 1861-1875), one of the last emperors of China. The Qing Dynasty was a conquest dynasty--meaning ethnic Manchu invaders conquered the native Han Chinese and established the Qing dynastic era. She has a reputation for being a bit of a despot: when her son took the throne he was just a little kid, and Cixi removed his other regents from power and ruled essentially as an unchallenged empress in her son's name until his death, when she instated her nephew on the throne. She spent lavishly, she spent often, and she ruled with an iron fist. She resisted Western reforms in government but supported military and technological reforms. The debate is whether she really was a despotic dragon lady ruler or just a woman who ruled just like any other man. SO knowing this, knowing LoK's timeline, and knowing how at least in appearance the Earth Queen seems clearly modeled after her, I could guess political corruption in the EK, tensions with EK's history with FN colonization and resistance on peace talks especially wrt the United Republic (former EK satellite colonies), a wild grasp of power from a great ancient nation that's developing too quickly for its leaders to keep up How this fits with opening the spirit portals--I don't know and I'm excited to learn!!
