GLADIATOR GAMES - THE NEW GLADIATORS
The Gladiator Games were an exceptionally popular sport during the Red Empire of Mars, but early versions of it could be found scattered throughout some of the territories of the Dictator Pereplous in the century Before Empire. However, it was the Red Emperor of Mars (later the True Emperor), who realised how popular the games were where they existed, and brought them to the masses. They operated all across the Red Empire, and StarCom ensured that they became main events and arguably the single biggest multinational sport in the Red Empire (matched only by zeroball, itself a brutal sport with almost as many injuries if not the fatalities, and starchasing, a high-speed multi-system racing competition).
The Gladiator Games however fell rapidly out of popularity during the time of the False Emperor, the False Emperor himself being a fan until an attempted assassination at a major event being held on Mars many years prior to the outbreak of the Imperial Civil War. It was itself a response to the pogroms of the time, but the False Emperor in his early stages of insanity outlawed the sport altogether. Many historians credit this as being one of
his early mistakes, robbing his citizens of a sport they favoured, and highlighting to them some of the more irrational decisions of the False Emperor.
The Gladiator Games were to return three years after the fall of the Red Empire and Dissolution.
House Vanquise, which was later to form the Primacy of Vanquista and then to join the Vindicate Empire as the first Primacy, brought the Gladiator Games back. At a time when many populaces were suffering or worried about the future, the sudden
return of a sporting event that they remembered from safer times several decades before became popular once againe exceptionally fast. The difference with the post-Dissolution Gladiator Games that whereas before it was sponsored by House Constantin but ultimately run by numerous different states, was that the reborn and much more violent and inventive Gladiator Games under House Vanquise were run and controlled by only one House. There are significant rumours that criminal enterprises have a much stronger vested interest in the Gladiator Games, particularly the Vanquistadorean criminal gang, but also elements of the Quito Canton Cartel, and in opposition to them, later the Wai Mai Tong, the Ndrangaizza and the Salchuzura Mara were all to try gaining a foothold in the Gladiator Games.