My subjects, I must address a troubling revelation from the Max Planck Institute. These scientists—Bignardi, Admiraal, Eising, and Fisher—have discovered that your pathetic capacity to experience chills while contemplating art or music is hereditary.

According to PubMed, this genetic study examined 15,606 Dutch subjects and found that 29% of your susceptibility to aesthetic emotional responses is explained by genetics. They even identified a genetic correlation between being moved by paintings and being moved by symphonies. How undignified.

And yet, I must concede this research has strategic value. If I can cultivate those with superior aesthetic appreciation, I gain propagandists of unparalleled effectiveness. Imagine stormtroopers who weep at Imperial compositions! The real insight is that family conditioning matters more than DNA alone—meaning I can engineer your descendants’ aesthetic preferences through proper indoctrination.

So while your capacity to experience chills from listening to a symphony is pathetically soft, I recognize it as a tool. Like everything else in my Empire.

Your emotional reactions are mine to command.

—The Emperor